The Goldfinch
The Goldfinch was read for my book club, but I had already bought it and would have read it anyway.
The third of Donna Tartt's novels, she appears to only bring one out every ten years. My prior experience with her novels was that her debut The Secret History remains in my opinion one of the best novels I've ever read and her second The Little Friend one of my most loathed novels as a reading experience in terms of hours spent versus satisfaction gained.
What then of her third? If The Secret History was love and The Little Friend hate, I would have to class The Goldfinch as indifference. I neither loved it nor hated it and found it somewhat 'meh' to coin a slang phrase.
The reason for this is simple. The book can clearly be split into four distinct zones, each of which feels like it's part of a different novel. New York Part 1, Vegas, New York Part 2, and Amsterdam.
New York Part 1, where the novel starts is great. An explosion at an art gallery kills Theo's Mum, during the aftermath he befriends a dying old man and steals a priceless artwork, before being sent to stay with the rich family of his best friend from school. Though he knows he should return 'The Goldfinch' it becomes a symbol of his last link to his Mum, and he worries about being punished. He contacts the loved ones of the dying man he met and becomes part of their world too. This whole section was such a good setup, all the characters introduced here are interesting and intriguing and you feel that this is the beginning a really beguiling novel. The family Theo stays with are a family of secrets and you wonder what you will find. But from here the novel takes a turn.
The plot moves us away to Vegas, a colourless landscape, with Theo wasting his potential with a Russian stereotype of a character named Boris with whom he bunks off school and takes drugs. It's all a bit been here read that.
Section three finds Theo back in New York and my overwhelming feeling about this Section was that no-one besides Hobie was particularly likeable. Theo continues on a drug abuse spiral and commits a large scale fraud. He's in love but not with his fiance, and it's all a bit depressing, that angle of things. His best friends family due to events, have become incredibly altered from the people we met in Part One so much so in the case of his friends mother, a stoic if ever there was one, as to be unrecognisable as the same character. Again this seems like a different book.
The return of Stereotype Boris leads us to yet another section which feels disconnected to the rest of the book : a crime thriller in Amsterdam of which I was unenamoured.
The closing epilogue is a trite and somehow patronising treatise on The Lessons Theo Learned About Life From This Experience, a section which goes on for pages and doesn't really need to exist at the length that it does. It seems to exist purely to tell the reader what they should have inferred from the novel and what conclusions they should draw. Tiresome.
All of that said, it is well written and enjoyable to read as you go along, but the overwhelming thing we felt at Book Club was "what was the point of it all?" it doesn't seem to have a point, and is not dare I say it, a book literature as a whole would be lost without.
7/10
Showing posts with label Book Club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Club. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 October 2014
Sunday, 8 June 2014
Book #14 The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
The Five People You Meet In Heaven
Next months choice for Book Club is The First Phonecall from Heaven by Mitch Albom - having not read any of his, I thought it best to read 'Five People' first as everyone from Book Club read it ages ago.
At the start of the novel, an elderly man named Eddie, a maintenance man at a fairground dies, and meets five people whose lives he impacted along the way.
The clear purpose of this novel is to give rather a spiritual lesson to its readers on how all lives intersect and how everyone impacts each other. At times this feels trite, earnest and worthy. Also I found it highly American in its moralising.
However when I reached Eddie's fifth person, and the ultimate spiritual lesson of his life, my blood ran cold, and I got rather emotional.
It's a good book, and a very short, quick and easy read, it reminded me a bit of one of Paulo Coelho's lesser efforts though.
It's all rather wholesome and rather cheesy, but I think has had a great deal of popular appeal, and the reasons for this are clear whilst reading.
Verdict : 7/10
Next months choice for Book Club is The First Phonecall from Heaven by Mitch Albom - having not read any of his, I thought it best to read 'Five People' first as everyone from Book Club read it ages ago.
At the start of the novel, an elderly man named Eddie, a maintenance man at a fairground dies, and meets five people whose lives he impacted along the way.
The clear purpose of this novel is to give rather a spiritual lesson to its readers on how all lives intersect and how everyone impacts each other. At times this feels trite, earnest and worthy. Also I found it highly American in its moralising.
However when I reached Eddie's fifth person, and the ultimate spiritual lesson of his life, my blood ran cold, and I got rather emotional.
It's a good book, and a very short, quick and easy read, it reminded me a bit of one of Paulo Coelho's lesser efforts though.
It's all rather wholesome and rather cheesy, but I think has had a great deal of popular appeal, and the reasons for this are clear whilst reading.
Verdict : 7/10
Saturday, 26 April 2014
Book #10 Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
Ella Minnow Pea
I somewhat rather hopefully stated the other day on Twitter that I had only read 12 books so far this year and what a disappointment this is. My life is a lie, as a quick blog check revealed I have only read 10, this book Ella Minnow Pea is the tenth. I have two others in progress so at least that's something.
At least, if I have slowed down in my reading output I have by consequence become more discerning in what I read. Ella Minnow Pea was my Book Club's book this month, so I didn't really choose it per se, but if I'm being more selective about what I give my precious reading time to, I'm really glad that I gave some of that time to Ella Minnow Pea.
It's a book about language and words, and their vital purpose for human beings, Mark Dunn takes this idea to its furthest point and shows how it is not just words but the letters which comprise them that prove essential to human beings, and the vanishing of even one letter - never mind several - proves catastrophic.
As a wider concept the book is a commentary on a number of issues besides language and linguistics - essentially it's a dystopia about Freedom Of Speech and censorship but via its construct, it also takes a rather good aim at both totalitarianism and religious dogma.
Though a short book, in terms of the nature of the premise, it's an incredibly difficult feat to pull off in writing terms and must have been a genuine challenge, yet Mark Dunn rises to this challenge with aplomb.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and have already started recommending it.
10/10
I somewhat rather hopefully stated the other day on Twitter that I had only read 12 books so far this year and what a disappointment this is. My life is a lie, as a quick blog check revealed I have only read 10, this book Ella Minnow Pea is the tenth. I have two others in progress so at least that's something.
At least, if I have slowed down in my reading output I have by consequence become more discerning in what I read. Ella Minnow Pea was my Book Club's book this month, so I didn't really choose it per se, but if I'm being more selective about what I give my precious reading time to, I'm really glad that I gave some of that time to Ella Minnow Pea.
It's a book about language and words, and their vital purpose for human beings, Mark Dunn takes this idea to its furthest point and shows how it is not just words but the letters which comprise them that prove essential to human beings, and the vanishing of even one letter - never mind several - proves catastrophic.
As a wider concept the book is a commentary on a number of issues besides language and linguistics - essentially it's a dystopia about Freedom Of Speech and censorship but via its construct, it also takes a rather good aim at both totalitarianism and religious dogma.
Though a short book, in terms of the nature of the premise, it's an incredibly difficult feat to pull off in writing terms and must have been a genuine challenge, yet Mark Dunn rises to this challenge with aplomb.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and have already started recommending it.
10/10
Sunday, 13 October 2013
Memoirs Of A Geisha by Arthur Golden
Memoirs Of A Geisha
I haven't given Memoirs Of A Geisha a number because I first read it and loved it when I was either 20 or 21, so it doesn't count towards the challenge. The reason I'm reflecting on it again now is because I re-read it for book club last month.
It is the story of Chiyo, a young girl from a fishing village sold into the geisha culture by her elderly father as her mother lays dying. Her older sister Satsu fairs worse - directly sold into prostitution. Geisha are not prostitutes in traditional Western understanding terms more entertainers for wealthy men.
What I loved about it the first time round was the elegance of the prose which I found poetic and evocative - a portrait of a time, place and tradition which has all but disappeared. It has the qualities which I so like about literature in general, a sense that the existence of the novel enables the reader the time travel.
On a second read it was surprising to me that I did not empathise with Chiyo anymore after she transforms into Sayuri, I found the life of the Geisha girls shallow and repetitive and Sayuri herself an ungrateful and at times nasty character.
There are certain points I think at which the reader is meant to be cheering Sayuri on but I couldn't help but feel concern for those who had been damaged by her actions rather than rejoice in her triumphs.
I hated her ultimate vindictiveness towards a character who had always, always taken care of her and I felt her "romance" with the Chairman lacked foundation, substance or credibility.
It's a really, really odd thing to love a book on first read and feel less enamoured of it on second read and I have to say that I think it must be something to do with maturity and the way your views on life and what you see as love change as you age.
My different opinions on the events in the book have shown me how much I have changed in ten years, and that's a really odd sensation. Try it with a book you once loved and see if the book is a different book because you are a different person.
Verdict : Still a good read 8/10
Destination : Keep, maybe I'll read it again in my 40s!
I haven't given Memoirs Of A Geisha a number because I first read it and loved it when I was either 20 or 21, so it doesn't count towards the challenge. The reason I'm reflecting on it again now is because I re-read it for book club last month.
It is the story of Chiyo, a young girl from a fishing village sold into the geisha culture by her elderly father as her mother lays dying. Her older sister Satsu fairs worse - directly sold into prostitution. Geisha are not prostitutes in traditional Western understanding terms more entertainers for wealthy men.
What I loved about it the first time round was the elegance of the prose which I found poetic and evocative - a portrait of a time, place and tradition which has all but disappeared. It has the qualities which I so like about literature in general, a sense that the existence of the novel enables the reader the time travel.
On a second read it was surprising to me that I did not empathise with Chiyo anymore after she transforms into Sayuri, I found the life of the Geisha girls shallow and repetitive and Sayuri herself an ungrateful and at times nasty character.
There are certain points I think at which the reader is meant to be cheering Sayuri on but I couldn't help but feel concern for those who had been damaged by her actions rather than rejoice in her triumphs.
I hated her ultimate vindictiveness towards a character who had always, always taken care of her and I felt her "romance" with the Chairman lacked foundation, substance or credibility.
It's a really, really odd thing to love a book on first read and feel less enamoured of it on second read and I have to say that I think it must be something to do with maturity and the way your views on life and what you see as love change as you age.
My different opinions on the events in the book have shown me how much I have changed in ten years, and that's a really odd sensation. Try it with a book you once loved and see if the book is a different book because you are a different person.
Verdict : Still a good read 8/10
Destination : Keep, maybe I'll read it again in my 40s!
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
Repost : A Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes
A Sense Of An Ending
I don't normally repost anything but, I read A Sense Of An Ending 2 years ago, and read it again for book club this weekend, so it counts as having been read this year too. I have added extra detail upon second reflection, and made some edits.
Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, Julian Barnes broke the curse having previously been unsuccessful with Flaubert's Parrot in 1984, England, England in 1998 and Arthur and George in 2005. I hadn't read any of his previous work but I really enjoyed this book, and will on the strength of it absolutely seek out some of his other works.
It is essentially a short novel, coming in at just 150 pages, which makes me wonder whether it is in fact a novella or an extended short story. It definitely does have the 'feel' of a short story about it. And it is therefore difficult to review without spoilers, but I'm going to try my best.
Tony Webster is an ordinary middle aged man who has had a fairly unremarkable life, he married, he had a child, he divorced as so many do. But when something occurs out of the blue, the past returns to haunt him and he is forced to re-examine his history in relation to his former schoolfriend Adrian Finn; a charismatic, clever, serious boy from a broken home whose life story became linked to his in a way that Tony had never imagined nor even given consideration to.
This book is in a way about the transgressions of youth, but it also has relevance to anyone of any age. In a temper Tony said some thoughtless and spiteful things, which, in many ways would be the default reaction of most people who are placed in the situation he is placed in, particularly a young man of his age at the time. But, this act of thoughtlessness, an act that he never really dwelt upon in the years that followed had massive repercussions for several lives thereafter.
One thing I noted on the second read was the important things it has to say about history. At one point Adrian Finn calls history "the point where the failures of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation" Particularly in individual lives as opposed to accepted global history. The recollections of 2 individuals about the one incident in both their lives may vary widely, what for one person is a terrible regret that they have pondered at length is for the other but a blip on their radar that they never dwelt upon.
This book gave me real pause for thought, as it made me think about the impact that our actions have on other people's stories. Even if what we say about the person is true, though in Tony's case it wasn't so much that; a selfish need to "get back" at someone or to find a means of expressing our feelings can cause a chain reaction the likes of which we never expected or were never aware. What happens is not Tony's "fault" per-se, he couldn't possibly have anticipated it, but yet it wouldn't have happened without that one action on his part, or....would it? It's a novel about making an error in the heat of the moment.
Then, as an older man this is something he is left to consider possibly the rest of his life, and never get the sense of an ending, the facts he possesses about the past are not entire yet it is clear that one person at least places the burden of blame squarely upon his shoulders. Is it really Tony's fault? We at book club said no...there were extenuating circumstances, but, the wounded recipient only cares about placing blame and not about the multitude of actions by many people that led ultimately to the conclusion. At the same time, they have every right to seek to place blame, and so, like everything in life the situation exists in shades of grey.
The consequence of this book has caused a certain level of guilt by proxy for me. An examination of points in my life whereby I did or said or wrote something with only thought for my own feeling and not the feelings of the person on the receiving end. Even if you are "in the right" factually, morally, or just in your own mind, you don't know what chain reaction of events you may have unwittingly sparked.
For a book to have an impact of this kind upon you, to make you consider your own life and psychology, it rises above being "just a story" and I was delighted to see this win the prize. 10/10 for the simple fact it is a book you will continue to think on long after you've closed it.
I don't normally repost anything but, I read A Sense Of An Ending 2 years ago, and read it again for book club this weekend, so it counts as having been read this year too. I have added extra detail upon second reflection, and made some edits.
Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, Julian Barnes broke the curse having previously been unsuccessful with Flaubert's Parrot in 1984, England, England in 1998 and Arthur and George in 2005. I hadn't read any of his previous work but I really enjoyed this book, and will on the strength of it absolutely seek out some of his other works.
It is essentially a short novel, coming in at just 150 pages, which makes me wonder whether it is in fact a novella or an extended short story. It definitely does have the 'feel' of a short story about it. And it is therefore difficult to review without spoilers, but I'm going to try my best.
Tony Webster is an ordinary middle aged man who has had a fairly unremarkable life, he married, he had a child, he divorced as so many do. But when something occurs out of the blue, the past returns to haunt him and he is forced to re-examine his history in relation to his former schoolfriend Adrian Finn; a charismatic, clever, serious boy from a broken home whose life story became linked to his in a way that Tony had never imagined nor even given consideration to.
This book is in a way about the transgressions of youth, but it also has relevance to anyone of any age. In a temper Tony said some thoughtless and spiteful things, which, in many ways would be the default reaction of most people who are placed in the situation he is placed in, particularly a young man of his age at the time. But, this act of thoughtlessness, an act that he never really dwelt upon in the years that followed had massive repercussions for several lives thereafter.
One thing I noted on the second read was the important things it has to say about history. At one point Adrian Finn calls history "the point where the failures of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation" Particularly in individual lives as opposed to accepted global history. The recollections of 2 individuals about the one incident in both their lives may vary widely, what for one person is a terrible regret that they have pondered at length is for the other but a blip on their radar that they never dwelt upon.
This book gave me real pause for thought, as it made me think about the impact that our actions have on other people's stories. Even if what we say about the person is true, though in Tony's case it wasn't so much that; a selfish need to "get back" at someone or to find a means of expressing our feelings can cause a chain reaction the likes of which we never expected or were never aware. What happens is not Tony's "fault" per-se, he couldn't possibly have anticipated it, but yet it wouldn't have happened without that one action on his part, or....would it? It's a novel about making an error in the heat of the moment.
Then, as an older man this is something he is left to consider possibly the rest of his life, and never get the sense of an ending, the facts he possesses about the past are not entire yet it is clear that one person at least places the burden of blame squarely upon his shoulders. Is it really Tony's fault? We at book club said no...there were extenuating circumstances, but, the wounded recipient only cares about placing blame and not about the multitude of actions by many people that led ultimately to the conclusion. At the same time, they have every right to seek to place blame, and so, like everything in life the situation exists in shades of grey.
The consequence of this book has caused a certain level of guilt by proxy for me. An examination of points in my life whereby I did or said or wrote something with only thought for my own feeling and not the feelings of the person on the receiving end. Even if you are "in the right" factually, morally, or just in your own mind, you don't know what chain reaction of events you may have unwittingly sparked.
For a book to have an impact of this kind upon you, to make you consider your own life and psychology, it rises above being "just a story" and I was delighted to see this win the prize. 10/10 for the simple fact it is a book you will continue to think on long after you've closed it.
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