Exclamation Points!

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

I first heard of Karen Russell in my Fiction I class last semester. Actually, we read one of her short stories selected for the Best American Short Stories 2010 anthology. It was something like “The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach”. I was one of the few in the class who liked it (or maybe actually did the assigned reading before class… either way…) but even in liking it I felt like reading her words spent time I could never get back and not necessarily in a good way.

Our professor talked about Karen Russell and this book that had only just released very briefly in class that day. And I remember my friend Michael commenting that he wanted to read Swamplandia! but didn’t realize that it was the same author. I think some of his enthusiasm deflated a bit that day.

Here’s the thing: Karen Russell writes some absolutely, thrillingly, heart-achingly beautiful sentences and descriptions. Her stories have just enough eerie weirdness that they keep you hooked. Her universe looks and behaves just like ours, until suddenly, it doesn’t anymore. And we, the readers, are left scrambling, trying to figure out when she pulled the rug out from underneath our feet. When, Karen, did you decide that this world you’ve created no longer behaves like the one I know and understand?

In your reeling recovery you are forced to decide how you feel about the rules suddenly changing, at least in appearance. Russell writes about such bizarre circumstances I guess it’s obvious to some that there will be strange things afoot in her stories. But each time I’m overwhelmingly flabbergasted.

I’m most conflicted about this novel. More so than any other book I read in 2011. For one thing Karen’s excitement about writing practically leaps off the page and slaps you with a fish (and that’s kind of refreshing). Her word choice and prose are FASCINATING. And like I said heart-achingly beautiful. One scene in particular replaces the mindless destruction of a Hurricane with that of a curious giant monster merely peeling a roof back to sniff what was cooking inside a house. I mean the woman generates some really cool stuff.

Yet, in the midst of this quirky family of alligator wrestlers Karen’s enthusiasm and bizarre story get lost in the swamp along with her readers. There were moments in this book that I absolutely adored. I felt like I needed to be listening to Bright Eyes’ Cassadaga the whole time I was reading. And more times than not I wanted to throw the book against a wall. There in the midst of this carefully crafted story Karen switched around narrators on us, but not until halfway into the story! And don’t even get me started on the exclamation points!

And here the “if you don’t have anything good to say don’t say anything at all” rule is slapping me over the head with a fish. So, I’ll cut it off here. I guess my best advice is for you to read it for yourself so you can develop your own opinion. But I don’t endorse it with my usual fervor. Try it out with Bright Eyes though… that might have been the missing ingredient.

Swedish novels with long names

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I remember seeing this book in Sam’s Club ages ago and wondering if I’d like it. The cover sort of attracted me, and the title. But this was a bit before I really launched into the serious business of reading and I hadn’t really crossed the Mississippi (if you will) that runs between Young Adult Lit and Modern Lit.

I have to admit that I was not a big fan of this book. It moves at a snails pace, is full of quite tedious detail and horrific scenes that neither inspire empathy or anger just horror, and went on for about 100 pages after it should have just ended. That was my overall feeling of the book. There were moments that I enjoyed. Some of the detail in the prose regarding Lisbeth’s love of technological things was interesting.

Mostly I just felt like I’d been forced to spend several hours observing two people through a one way mirror who could not care less that other people existed.

I’m seriously debating whether or not I’ll finish the trilogy. My friend Garrett, who hasn’t really steered me wrong with a suggestion before (directly or indirectly) said that his enjoyment of the series picked up with the second book and the third was his favourite. It’s such a gamble though, each of those books is a brick.

In other news I’ve been lazy and I’ve left the cover of that book over there in my side bar for far too long. So, I’ll update that as soon as I finish typing this up.

I think the most interesting thing for me about reading this book is that Jeffrey read it as well. We now discuss books during our conversations together. Something I find quite endearing and always a little bit bizarre. He’s an interesting critic. He, like me, was not super impressed with the story and felt it went on too long. And we discussed the implications of translating it from Swedish into English (and how that made some of the words have different spellings than he was used to). I think that was the coolest result of reading the book.

I really don’t have any interest in watching the movies (except that I do love to see Daniel Craig stare intensely into the camera with those icy blue eyes of his)

seriously, they're almost clear

so I probably won’t watch them. But I will let you know if I finally decide whether to finish the trilogy or not. Recently something’s gotten into me and I find myself having less patience for series of books. Give it to me in a stand alone, that’s what I want.

What did you think? Have you seen the movies? Did you read the whole trilogy? Should I?

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

Also known as possibly the saddest book I read in 2011. Or #5 in my last 15.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

In the frantic last days of November I wandered into Inkwood Books and told one of the clerks that I needed a new book. I told her I was making an attempt to read 75 books and I wanted something a little different from what I’d already read that year. She, being a good bookstore worker, asked me about the books I’d read. I ran through the highlight reel: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, The Rules of Civility, The Book Thief (we had a brief discussion of Markus Zusak) The History of Love and I told her some of my favourite authors. It took a few minutes and I had my hands full of several vaguely interesting books until the moment when she realized “different” had been my key word. So she picked up The Girl Who Fell From the Sky and told me the basic premise:

“It’s based on a news story,” she said, “and sort of semi-autobiographical.”

“Okay,” I said.

“The story is about a bi-racial little girl whose mother throws herself and her children off the roof of a building and the little girl survives. It deals with her developing her identity after moving to her grandmother’s.”

“I’ll take it,” I said.

It’s parts coming-of-age, social/racial commentary, and orphan story. Having read Dickens’ David Copperfield earlier this year my mind immediately wants to make connections to the similar orphan story… the wandering nature of the child. It’s a story told in sections as the main character grows up and very, very slowly comes to terms with the hurt in her life.

Rachel, the main character, is given more than her fair share of tragedy at a very young age and continually during her years developing into a teenager. And the woman at Inkwood was right, the semi-autobiography is there. The reader is shown glimpses of a world between races through the eyes of a confused and hurt child and an insecure teenager. I found this particularly interesting. As children grow up they attempt to construct worldviews to explain the behavior around them. Rachel for the first time at 10 or 11 years old is introduced to the world of racism (having lived overseas before). It overwhelms her mother’s attempts to protect and is rooted in her grandmother’s behaviors. Rachel finds brief solace with her aunt, but spends much of the book trying to figure out where she fits in. She barely longs for the days before the fall because even that time she didn’t really understand.

A boy, also from Chicago, who holds a key to Rachel’s understanding of her life, makes his way from Chicago to Portland in order to tell Rachel what he knows. I found myself really interested in his part of the narrative. As well as Rachel’s mother’s diaries discovered by her friend Laronne.

The interweb is full of reviews of the book that are much better than mine. Like this one. But I have to say I was pleased with it. And even more so pleased with the service I received at Inkwood. I’d encourage you to read it, but be aware that it will take some guts. It’s not always a pleasant story, but it was definitely one worth telling.

the tale of a spear wielder

The Spearwielder's Tale by R.A. Salvatore

(In this review I explain some major plot points… so if you don’t want to be spoiled turn away, otherwise proceed with caution, one does not merely walk into a review of a fantasy novel.)

 

The day I started this book I tweeted

the tweeter machine

Please excuse that glaring grammar/spelling mistake. But I was right. It was uniquely enjoyable. It’s been quite some time since I’ve read some straight fantasy with giants and elves and leprechauns and all of that. Fantasy, as a genre, was heavily influential in my early years of reading. We’ve already talked about the influence C.S. Lewis was on me as a reader. And I went through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in high school around the time the movies were coming out. And of course the Harry Potter series. But I consider that a little more on the magical realism side. This Spearwielder’s Tale (which I manage to spell incorrectly every time) was straight fantasy. One of those ripped from the real world into Faerie types of things.

I liked some of the “reveals” that resulted from the main character, Gary, being taken into Faerie. In the first book he’s taken there as a disillusioned recent college grad merely because he fits the specific size of a legendary suit of armor. A scheming leprechaun and an elf on his life quest convince Gary that he has to tag along and the land of Faerie is very much real. Lovers of Tolkien will enjoy that throughout the first book Mickey McMickey (the leprechaun) reads Gary’s copy of The Hobbit, even translating it into his own language. (This artifact given back to him at the end of the first book helps him realize that he hasn’t actually gone crazy).

The Elf (Kelsey), Mickey McMickey, and Gary add a dwarf and a giant to their gang (somewhat begrudgingly) and best not only a conniving witch bent on interrupting their quest but also stand down a very tricky dragon (who can walk around in human form). And they do it all by walking everywhere. No horses. Gary ends up banishing the witch to her castle for 100 years and accidentally freeing the dragon from his castle (though he’d been banished by the elf defeating him in swordplay). This upsets the balance of power in Faerie and creates the plot for the second book.

Five years later in the real world, and only a couple of weeks in Faerie, Gary is brought back to replace a dagger he accidently stole from the dragon. Again Mickey McMickey has an ulterior motive. His pot of gold is situated in the dragon’s pile of wealth, too, and he needs it back.

The witch is still banished, but she convinces Gary to let her out early. He agrees to reduce her banishment from 100 years to 3 months, mainly so she’ll stay out of their hair while they try to handle the dragon. And she does. Also some gnomes show up in this book and they build crazy contraptions. The situation progressively gets worse and worse and Gary ends up having to kill the dragon (in dragon form) with the aid of the spear (which can talk to him) and a contraption built by the dwarf and gnome. I don’t know if I skipped over the specifics somehow but I don’t think how they did it was ever actually explained. Oh yeah, and there are a ton of horses in this one with some kind of fear inducing bells attached to them.

In the second book Salvatore throws out his nod to Fleetwood Mac implying that members of the band had crossed over into Faerie when Gary starts singing one of their songs and Mickey makes a comment about that bard knowing of what he sings. Gary is overwhelmingly excited by the possibility that his favorite author and members of his favorite band have made their way into Faerie for some reason or another. (Mickey had earlier confirmed that Tolkien had to have seen a dragon in real life because he described them perfectly, but he was a little off on the trolls).

The third book was my least favorite. But there were some slightly interesting things that happened. Gary, recently married and having lost his father is desperate to get back into Faerie. So he traipses all over England and Scotland in an effort to find another passage into Faerie. His wife sort of believes the stories he’s told her about his adventures in Faerie but is annoyed all the same at Gary’s strange persistence. Mickey finally relents and allows Gary and his wife to come back to Faerie, mainly because they are in such dire straits. All of Faerie is at war… the men vs. the magical creatures (elves, dwarves, and gnomes). So Gary jumps in and starts his work. The witch is still banished in her castle for this book, but her machinations have crept out. Apparently sometime during his reign the witch had replaced the King with some very strange mountain creature called the Wild Hairy Haggis.

Gary, Kelsey, Mickey, Gary’s wife, and the prince go on a quest to find the real king as the rest of Faerie squares off for war lead by the impostor king. It all ends with Gary fighting a demon in the witch’s castle. And more than a few men die. So thanks to Gary, Kelsey, and Mickey Faerie is set to experience a long time of peace. The king offers to set Gary up as a Duke to watch over a section of his kingdom and be given some reward for all his efforts in Faerie and though Gary and his wife seriously consider it they decide to go back to the real world.

Mickey’s final piece of advice to Gary is that Faerie will always be in his mind. On the plane from England back to the States Gary realizes that he can’t tell people about Faerie an expect to be taken seriously… he’d just end up in some tabloid. He comes to the conclusion that he’ll write a novel and like Tolkien did for him maybe his story will prepare some future hero for the realities of Faerie.

 

I did enjoy the books, though I’ll admit I skipped over a lot of the fighting scenes. They’re just not really my thing. And I was completely annoyed by the overuse of the word “maw”. I realize that it’s sort of a catch-22 to use a thesaurus in this case. Because these are the kinds of options you’re given:

thesaurus for maw

So yeah, not very enticing options. But goodness I was so over reading the word “maw” that when I recently saw it in another book I almost reflexively chucked it across the room.

I’d say that if you enjoy fantasy and some sillier moments in fiction than this set of novels would be great for you to peruse. And Salvatore is apparently a prolific fantasy/sci-fi writer. So, if that’s your thing I’m sure you’ll find something that tickles your fancy.

These were books 2-4 in my last 15 of 2011 if you’re keeping track.

the problem with reading reviews…

… before you’ve finished the novel is this: you lose interest.

I know I’ve referenced Goodreads more than a few times on here. And I do love it. I’ve found several books that I might not have read otherwise… plus this 800 word prequel that Rowling wrote about James and Sirius that was pretty cute. But the problem with Goodreads is that I read reviews of books before I’ve finished them. In the case of Anna Karenina this was helpful. I realized other people in the world loathed this novel as much as I did. One reader even admitted to tossing his in a fire upon completion (I haven’t done that… I don’t think I could).

Other novels I’ve read reviews of didn’t really bother me because I didn’t care about them too much. So the reviews were merely entertaining and didn’t affect my reading too much. And then there’s this book

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

I want so desperately to like this book. I started it on December 7th and there’s no way it should take me 7 days to read. But I just can’t get into it. I mean Ms. Russell writes some beautiful pieces. Collections of words and phrases that thrill me. But this story is just plodding along and making me want to cry.

I read one of her short stories last semester in my Fiction I class. “The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach” found in The Best American Short Stories 2010. I think our overall reaction to the story was that it was bizarre and dense. I mean, Karen throws in polysyllabic words one after the other like it ain’t no thing. And after two paragraphs filled with heavy words and phrases I just find myself really really tired.

So, I’ll finish it. But I may need to pick up another book and start reading two of them simultaneously. I only have 17 days left after all.

medieval crime solving

Someday I will tell you the story about how I’ve been to 4 DMV’s in the last two weeks. Someday, when it’s been relegated to merely anecdotal and not just a spur in my side over getting a front row seat to the inefficiencies of our local bureaucratic government I will pass along the humour of the lessons learned about the privilege of driving. For now, just know that I am finally free and clear to put some miles on my car. And I am prepared to do just that (whilst adhering to the speed limit the whole way). I am, to quote a song, ON THE ROAD AGAIN….

But back to what I’ve been reading.

The Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

This is another book suggestion that came to me from my friend Jenna. She actually handed me this along with another book one day as I was visiting her house and just said, “Read these.” No ifs, ands, or buts about it. The two books had to hang out in my car for a couple of weeks until I emptied out my reading queue and conquered the beast of Anna. 

The Mistress of the Art of Death was actually the first book in my final 15 of 2011. And she was quite the mistress. I haven’t read a novel like this since high school really. I read a lot of historical fiction then. Particularly the Cheney Duvall, M.D. series by Gilbert Morris. I’m a little embarrassed by how I so devoured all of the Gilbert Morris books at my school’s library. Mr. Morris struck my fancy because of the time periods he chose to write about, but each of his novels followed the same basic plot, over and over, and over again. I read the Cheney Duvall series and the Winslow family series up until about the 1920s I think. Then I moved on to Francine Rivers… a much better literary choice.

But Cheney Duvall and The Mistress, or Adelia, had quite a lot in common. They were both fictional pioneers in the field of medicine being the only women doctors in their novels. But then the similarities sort of stop. Adelia is from medieval Italy, more agnostic in her beliefs than anything else, championing for the Jews and religious freedom in a world that was quickly drawing very black and white lines between Catholic and Not, and rather than practicing medicine on living patients she works more as a coroner.

The novel is interesting. I haven’t read anything forensic in awhile, so it was strange for me to follow the clue building. That sort of stuff holds my attention very well in movies and television shows… but in books I just sort of get bored and want to get back to the people. However, I did find Adelia’s approach to determining the time of death quite humorous (I believe one of the detectives on CSI used a similar method).

The medieval time period also tickled me… particularly since the novel takes place in the few weeks following the murder of Thomas a Becket. (I got to see where he was murdered last time I visited England and I had a brief passion for all things Canterbury Tales, even A Knight’s Tale.)

So, bidden by King Henry II, Adelia, her bodyguard and another Jew from Italy travel to England to solve a series of murders. The victims are all children under the age of 10 or so and the Jews of the fictional town Cambridgeshire are being held captive in the local castle (for their safety).

The people of the village, the rival monastery and nunnery, and the awe inspiring knights returning from conquest in Outremer swirl around the edges of the plot. And all the while Adelia tries to put together the motive for the highly aggressive murders.

Though Henry II is only on a few pages I think I enjoyed his stomping around moreso than anything else in the novel. The political tenterhooks were also quite fascinating to me. A professor I had last year always talked about how England always bucked the power of the Roman Catholic church… that it never really felt right under their dominion. Ms. Franklin definitely captured that feeling in Mistress.

The time period is so particularly fascinating because the lines between Science and Magic, witchcraft and knowledge, progress and delusion were so indecipherable for many of the people… they were afraid of everything, developing superstitions at the drop of a hat… and yet, intelligence, clear-mindedness, and cunning thrived and grew despite the high cost.

This book kicks off a series. I’m not so sure I have the patience for series right now in my life. I sort of like the one and done aspect of most novels. Though I could see myself revisiting Adelia if I get a hankering for medieval Britain. Or maybe I’d just visit Heath Ledger and Paul Bettany again… I’m seriously surprised we haven’t completely worn that DVD out yet.

another review of a book about book lovers

So in the exhilarating hours following my completion of Anna Karenina I read 84, Charing Cross Road quickly followed by the similar The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A book with which I fell completely in love.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

As I mentioned in my review of 84 I heard about Guernsey when listening to the Diane Rehm show on NPR. And because of Anna I had to wait to read it. I opened the pages and found a quote from the book on this special glossy page at the beginning of the novel.

I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How wonderful if that were true.

  I teared up more than a few times while reading this book. Mary Ann Shaffer (described by her niece as their family’s best story-teller) and her niece Annie Barrows struck quite an amazing tone in telling the stories of the men and women who lived under German occupation in the British Channel Isles during World War Two. It is a story of courage and unlikely friendships and all those “feel good” cliches they use to describe novels like this. And I loved it.

Anna is considered a “great romance” and I guess I can kind of see that when it comes to Levin and Kitty… but to me it seemed more like a dissertation on dysfunctional relationships. So, this whimsical romance set in such a distinct little place was refreshing and just so cute to me.

Like 84, Guernsey is told through correspondence. The letters written to and from Juliet unfold the story of her life and the inhabitants of this quirky little island in the English Channel. All of the characters are resiliently recovering from the horrors of World War II and attempting to piece their lives back together. And Juliet, hearing of the people and their plight during the war decides to write a story about them.

I think after the bleak, bleak pages of early 19th century Russia the hopeful love story set in the late 1940s was so completely refreshing that I just liked it without even thinking about it. It is one of the best kinds of stories: people drawing together during a dark time and creating joy in the midst of terror.

I find the title of this book sort of amusing. As with most absurdly long titles it makes perfect sense once you’ve read the novel. And the quirkiness is sure to grab attention of book browsers. I like quirky names, but I am over them a little bit. I don’t think I’ll ever like books with one word titles. But somewhere in the 2-4 words range is acceptable I think. Or maybe I’m just in a weird mood after blogging about so many books with ridiculously long titles.

I have some exciting news for you all later this week… so make sure you stop by the blog Thursday to read it!

See you then.

15 Books by Midnight December 31, 2011

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

 

1. The Mistress of the Art of Death  by Ariana Franklin. It’s a murder mystery set in the 1100s. King Henry II romps around yelling, a woman who is basically a Medieval version of Temperance Bones solves murders and falls in love with a future Bishop, and crazy murderers travel from Outremer to Cambridgeshire in Crusader wear. It was quite pleasant.

 

The Spearwielder's Tale by R.A. Salvatore

2-4. The Spearwielder’s Tale  by R.A. Salvatore

It’s three books in one volume: The Woods Out Back, The Dragon’s Dagger, Dragonslayer’s Return. So far I’m enjoying it.

(From here the list isn’t necessarily in order… just will be read)

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

5. The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow. The very nice woman at Inkwood Books suggested this book to me after I told her of my goal and explained that I have a wide reading taste. It’s a pretty bizarre premise but altogether removed from anything else I’ve read this year. So, I’m interested.

Lost in a Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde

6. Lost in a Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde. I read the first one of these a year or more ago. The premise is interesting. She’s part of a time-traveling police force that can jump into Literature and she often has to in order to track down villains who would CHANGE THE PLOTS OF LITERATURE.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

7. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Because, you know, I seem hellbent on torturing myself.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

8. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I’ve wanted to read this movie ever since I heard John Cusack mentioned it in High Fidelity.

Hey, I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I’m certainly not the dumbest. I mean, I’ve read books like “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” and “Love in the Time of Cholera”, and I think I’ve understood them. They’re about girls, right? Just kidding. But I have to say my all-time favorite book is Johnny Cash’s autobiography “Cash” by Johnny Cash.

High Fidelity is one of my All Time Top Five Favourite films… and the novel of the same name by Nick Hornby is top in my books. I, too, have read The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Cash by Johnny Cash was on my library list for a long time. I figured it was time to give LITTOC a shot. We’ll see how it goes.

(these next few still fall into the realm of possibilities

Eragon by Chistopher Paolini

 

Eldest by Christopher Paolini

Brisinger by Christopher Paolini

Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

9-12.  Fellow blogger Geoff over at The Oddness of Moving Things just re-reviewed all four of these books and posted info about them on Goodreads. What got my attention the most was how young Christopher was when he started writing the series when he was 15. Christopher is about four years older than me and has been a published author for nine years now. So, he interests me.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

13. Obviously this book is ALL THE RAGE with the American adaptation coming out soon. I’m intrigued. I’ve heard good things. I’ve tried reading a Swedish novel once before but during another time which I might have been too ambitious in my book list. So, again, we’ll see.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

14. I enjoyed this movie and this list needs some classing up sort of… it’s between this and Atonement. 

Swamplandia by Karen Russell

15. Swamplandia by Karen Russell. It’s about Florida. I’m from Florida. Could be interesting.

 

What about you guys? Any suggestions from my loyal readers? Or advice? Chime in. Chime in.

84, Charing Cross Road

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Penguin Books

84, CHARING CROSS ROAD

Helene Hanff wrote letters all her life, but in addition she studied playwriting at the Theatre Guild, wrote for “The Hallmark Hall of Fame” and “Ellery Queen” and was the first woman president of the Lenox Hill Democratic Club. She wrote many books for children as well as articles for The New Yorker and Harper’s magazines. The author of Q’s Legacy (Penguin), her most recent book was Letter from New York: BBC Woman’s Hour Broadcasts. Ms. Hanff died in April of 1997.

-from 84, Charing Cross Road

The first part of that very first sentence I read of this charming little book captured my heart: Helene Hanff wrote letters all her life. I’ve long been fascinated by the lives of people told through their correspondence. We know many things about the men and women of history because of their correspondence. I often bemoan to my best friend Pam that if I am ever a celebrated authoress there will be no “paper trail” of letters betwixt me and my most intimate… merely inane text messages, whiney Livejournal posts from my late teenage years, and the sometimes interesting but most often boring emails spread across the five or six email address I’ve had over the past 10 years. And while this is all digitally accessible it’s not quite as charming as the hastily typewritten letters sent to Frank Doel.

For me this book was like discovering a secret club. I heard about the book years ago, but it wasn’t until a fated day that I happened to have NPR playing in Rigby whilst driving to work and I heard Diane Rehm discussing with her guests the book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society that I was reminded I wanted to read 84, CHARING CROSS ROAD. Diane drew a connection between the two books and I immediately pulled up my account for Hillsborough County Public Libraries and requested these two books be held for me.

And then I decided to finish Anna Karenina. All the while 84 sat on my reading table… just staring at me sadly. Luckily, it had TGLaPPS to keep it company. They waited for at least a week while I whined about ever having heard of Russian Literature and thinking it was a good idea to read it to all and sundry. Finally, Anna threw herself under that terrible train, Count Vronsky became a certifiable zombie, and Constantin Levin (thanks to a lightning storm) discovered he loved his wife and son and believed in God. And I was set free from that monstrous collection of tedium. The very night that I finished AK and hit the goal of 25,000 words for NaNo I curled up in bed with Helene and Frank and flew through their 97 pages of banter in about an hour.

I haven’t been completely caught up in a book like that in a long time. I felt a kinship to Helene, an experience made all the sweeter by reading non-fiction. Knowing that the words you’re reading, the thoughts and feelings expressed, aren’t meant to be transcendent like a fictional character’s, but are the momentary ramblings of a real time person creates a sort of bond. It’s the closest we can get to time travel I think… that and crossing time zone lines.

When this slim paperback drew to a close I found myself experiencing a poignant post-book slump. Reading correspondence between a charming woman in New York and a friendly book store clerk in England left me with the intense urge to stowaway and find myself standing at 84, Charing Cross Road. I would hope it would be a day when other tourists would be busier with the other major sights of London and I could wander into the “loveliest old shop straight out of Dickens” and “go absolutely out of my mind over it”. I could rejoice in celebrating books with other book lovers, this rare breed of people who find blots on pages intoxicating. And, happy day! I’d find a book perfect for me… and there the fantasy stops. But it’s a dream I’ll hold on to. I will return to London and read a book.

Next step: perhaps the movie.

 

On a slightly related note: I’ve decided to read 15 books before the year closes. I noticed on Goodreads the other day that my “books read in 2011″ count was 60. I figured I might as well make it a challenge and crank out some impressive numbers in the next few weeks. So, well past the halfway point for NaNoWriMo (and I’ve fallen about 7,000 words behind) and I’ll be sure to carve out more time to read. I’ve finished one book since I decided this and I’m starting a trilogy today. I’ll post the list of my last 15 books of 2011 once I get it finalized. Happy Monday everyone.

The History of Love

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

I really loved this book. My friend Garrett (who shares my major love for Thrice) had a quote from this book as his Facebook status one day and it IMMEDIATELY hooked my attention. I’ll just share that quote with you here:

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”

Garrett was quick to point out that he only had half of the quote up, however, I immediately went on a search for this novel. Because, c’mon, who doesn’t respond to romance like that? I saw it at Inkwood one day, but being quite incapable of buying all of the books that I like I waited to get it from the library. And then I started reading one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read (and at the same time quite a confusing novel).

I have a little bit of a pet peeve about this novel: there are three narrators. Two first person narrators that are quite vivid and then one third person omniscient narrator telling the story of another character or quoting passages from the novel The History of Love between the other narrators’ sections. The reason I was annoyed with this was not only does it create some confusion whilst reading… I am working, albeit intermittently, on a story about a couple teenage boys and a road trip and a professor of mine fussed at me for having this same sort of set up (with the three narrators). Oh well. That’s all I’ll say about that, because I’ll quickly start sounding “uppity”.

Anyway, my favourite parts of The History of Love were the passages that were “quotes” from the fictional novel The History of Love that’s sort of the catalyst for the actual novel (yeah, it’s confusing). What makes them so cool is how Nicole through her fictional author expresses very normal, universal experiences in an unexpected way. Like this:

“If at large gatherings or parties, or around people with whom you feel distant, your hands sometimes hang awkwardly at the ends of your arms – if you find yourself at a loss for what do with them, overcome with sadness that comes when you recognize the foreignness of your own body – it’s because your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body, brain and heart, what’s inside and what’s outside, was so much less. ”

from The History of Love, The Age of Silence

The Age of Silence and The Age of Glass are probably two of the best things I’ve ever read. Especially when you imagine a curmudgeonly old man explaining his fear of first expressing love based upon the belief that his rear end is made of glass. He’s honest about the vulnerability of telling someone you love them and messing it up because of fear.

I really, really, really cannot say enough to convince you to read this novel. Especially because if you find one part sort of difficult to read, the other narrator will give you a bit of a break. And there’s an absolutely adorable little boy named Bird who breaks your heart with his sincerity and sweetness.

Let’s just talk for a moment about how Nicole Krauss is married to Jonathan Saffran Foer. And apparently some snarkers on the internet accuse them of writing novels that are too similar (for instance The History of Love and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close). My best friend has read the latter and I can’t wait for her holiday break so that we can discuss the two novels together and come to our own conclusions.

The last thing I’m going to give you is the link to the goodreads quote page and I just implore you to go read it. They’re just fantastic quotes. And maybe you’ll pick it up and read it at some point.