Hi. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I’ve dropped the ball and that this is the first new book listed in weeks. Life has been really busy! But I am keeping up with the reading, currently reading something that is over 950 pages! Help!
But I’m off this week, so I will follow this one up with the next and hopefully catch up with you all and with me! Thanks for your interest.
Cynthia
Possibly because the Alex Cross mystery I just finished reading felt like such a guilty pleasure, when I pulled this title, I thought I was ready for it. You know, time to get deep for this blonde!
I had heard the premise – that the main character was dead and she was the one telling the story. But nothing could really make anyone be ready for something like this.
The tone she sets from the first page is an amazing one. There is a pure river of heart running through the family stories, yet there is never too much time elapsed between grizzly details, shocking you freshly each time. So you are drawn into the story and its details, repulsed and then, to your true amazement, you are ultimately charmed by the voice of this girl and her sweetness. Man.
From the first page, I felt a part of this tale. When I’m not reading it, I’m drawn to it, which is the mark of a great story. Then, just before picking it up, the overall story gives me the creeps. But not creepy enough to delay reading it, after which you are again reconnected.
The cover has a few quotes that say that Lovely Bones reminds them of To Kill A Mockingbird. I can see that. The sparse, elegant writing, for one. The lovely and not overwritten characters.
At 70 pages in, I have a few quibbles. The depiction of heaven is almost without detail. I hope the author will round that out a bit. And the narrator, unlike Scout in Mockingbird, seems incredibly erudite for a girl just becoming a teenager. But these are small quibbles. And there is too far to go to think that things won’t take twists and turns before we’re through.
Oh, one other sweet story about getting the book in the first place. Whenever I pick the next title, I call my neighborhood bookstore called Readers and ask if they have it. They so far haven’t (except for the first one, Outlander). They can order it. I don’t want to wait that long. I can take forever to read these but the second I’m done and pick another title, I want that book in my hands!
I then call my local library to see if they have it. They don’t. They can order it. I don’t want to wait that long. So my next place is a very large Barnes & Noble in Santa Rosa. So far, they’ve had them all. So I pack up my dog, Poppy, and take a ride.
This time, my local store had a used copy of Lovely Bones. I said I wanted it and to please hold it. I went to buy it.
It has this lovely bit written in the front of it, from Luke to Maria. It has love in it and high respect – perhaps a teacher of his? Or a reader he wanted to give something special to?
At any rate, I am thoroughly charmed by it and the chance to read Luke & Maria’s copy of it.
4/16/19
I really want out of this one. You might even call it my first crisis book.
Not that big a crisis, I’ll grant you. I’ll get there.
When this book started, the notion of this little girl dying and narrating the book from heaven, watching everyone suffer and try to solve her murder and their own lives in the process, seemed revolutionary in terms of point of view. And it was an amazing beginning. When I write, beginnings are always the hardest so that was one world class opening.
But then, heaven didn’t become anything. How do you put some one in heaven and not have it become anything? The supposition is put in there that in heaven, you will move on as soon as you can let go of the world. That seems a bit tidy. It makes for a whole lot of her just viewing the world.
Wouldn’t she make friends up there? In this book, they say that you get whatever you can imagine in this heaven, but if you can’t connect with people, what’s the point in, say, imagining and concocting your own ferris wheel for instance? Just to ride around by yourself?
Then, though the author writes in ways that keep suspense in there, for the most part, I’m 50 pages from the end and feel in no hurry to complete it. That close to the end, that isn’t a good sign.
The feeling of quality and intrigue I felt at the beginning were genuine. But have they paid off? Not really. Not yet.
I can see where people who have certain feelings about death would like to think that their departed loved ones just sit on the other side and watch our every move. But that feels really stalemate-like to me.
This is obviously a book that others love. I buy that. It is really possible that my problems with it are mine. The writing is very good.
And who knows? Maybe the end will justify the means.
Stay tuned.
4/17/19
Well, I finished it. Need to collect my thoughts…
The ending definitely made up for the lull I went through in the middle. If anything, there was almost a rush to solve and end everything throughout the book.
The last 50 pages were written extremely well. Might even be the most complex, most detailed and most visual portion of the whole opus.
I’m somewhat interested in how much of this stays with me. If there had been more about heaven, the whole book would have been more interesting to me. But by the end, I finally got what made this a lasting read for so many.
I’m going to finish a few other books and see what of this, if anything, lingers, but you might know by now that I can’t wait to know what the next book will be!
Oh my God. Jurassic Park.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie, especially when the dinosaurs could unlock freezers and stuff by the end. But I read a bunch of reviews on amazon and those people emboldened me. They each said that the book is better than the movie and that Crichton’s writing has them reading more and more of his books. I think the fact that he is as versatile as he is and has written on a lot of subjects quells my fears that it will be too dinosaur-y.
We’ll see!
3/9/19
50 PAGES IN –
My guilty pleasure is reading detective novels. At first sight, the worst thing about Patterson is that if I love his character, Alex Cross, there are about a million books in the series.
Nonetheless, I’m thrilled to be reading a mystery. It is very sparse writing, to the point, no extra information given (so you are already involved and wanting to know more). I like the way you are instantly viewing this case from two different angles. Often the second angle, if there is one, shows up later. But Patterson is so confident of his characters that he introduces everyone and their angles right away.
I’m off. This may well be my fastest read in the whole bunch. Well, this and Charlotte’s Web!
Last note; I have read some great detectives in my day. I like the pacing and instant character development here, but so far, I haven’t yet seen why Mr. Cross earns this high honor above all the others.
3/15/19
Whew. This is fast. Fast and brutal.
On the one hand, after Junot Diaz and Kurt Vonnegut, I feel like I’m reading the guiltiest pleasure of all. A bunch
of law enforcement officers busting up a prostitution ring? Now we’re talking!
I’ve always loved brevity and pacing and this thing reads like a bat out of hell.
I know there will be a moment, when I’m on page 5000 of Crime & Punishment, when I’ll be silently yearning for a good prostitution raid and some pacing. I will have lost the will to live by the fifth page describing some ornate hall or a peasant family forced to catch and eat rats to live. And right about then, I’ll be missing this.
But the fact is – I’m halfway through and Alex himself is still not really dawning on me. Every time I open up the book and start reading passages about his family, I have to remind myself of the members of it. They don’t stick out. Well, except for Nana, but that’s because she keeps almost dying so she comes to mind.
And the fact is that this was apparently a huge series and maybe pretty far back (again, I am in the dark as to the dates, due to my complete unwillingness to do any research). But Alex doesn’t even compare to Spenser, Susan & Hawk. And the pacing, well it’s great, but it isn’t particularly unique. Again, this could have preceded and set the stage for other fast page turners, so that might factor in.
I’ll whip through and see if these halfway points change…
3/22/19
Considering how overwhelmingly full my life is, I whipped through this little opus. As I said before, it was the ultimate guilty pleasure. It makes me scared of going from this to some huge Tolstoy thing. But on the other hand, I have to get there at some point and maybe better
after something fluffy like this.
I enjoyed reading it, because I like crime stuff that is paced super fast. Having said that, I’m a little surprised that this series was so ultimately popular.
The characters were well etched, but with no discernible subtlety. But that is Patterson’s choice. He wants to be all plot and that is a valid choice, I guess.
He also likes to make sure we know he can write this stuff dark. Okay. Some love that. I find it like he is sort of strutting to do it that way.
There is a feeling I have that I’m about to be drowned in a huge opus. Have to pick the next one right away. But in the meantime, it was fun to read something with this kind of electrifying pacing. I doubt I will have that experience too many more times with this list.
Okay here I go to pick the next one!
2/17/19
35 PAGES IN
Ah, just got it today and I’d already like to bury myself in it to the exclusion of everything else.
Check out this language, describing the summer heat.
“Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’ clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.”
C’MON! And that’s how it’s done.
3/8/19
Finished it last night.
From the first page, this is one of the best books ever written. There are whole books written on why it is so
good, but the fact that it is that good is almost as indisputable as drinking water and getting some sleep.
I enjoyed it thoroughly. I think it is my fourth or fifth time reading it. And unlike the previous books, I didn’t feel the shadow of the accolade while reading this one, even though it was voted #1. It simply belongs there. But I did read it with an overview of trying to ascertain why I thought it was so special. I mean, after all, anyone can ask an expert! Instead, let’s ask me!
The predominant reason I came up with was the totality of Scout’s central voice. There was a seamless blur between author and protagonist. You simply never doubted that this was an amazing and young voice talking to you.
Not only seamless, it allowed you to feel through Scout as well as looking over her shoulder. Characters came and went in the story the way they would in the mind’s eye of a child. One day, they were important; next day they were not. The most beguiling character is Atticus and here, you see the reverie with which normally level-headed Scout sees her father, as well as allowing his character to come through his actions and dialogue. You get her take and you get your own take. Throughout the book, that continues to feel rare.
As a child, you might not question why, when you wanted to see your dad holding court, you followed a grownup upstairs and displaced the black people in the front row automatically to take their seats. To you, that is how it’s done. But I can’t imagine how a horrendous image like that could be said more powerfully than in the status quo way she sees and says it.
My admiration for the writing here is boundless. Two big aspects of this for me were timing and brevity.
Though Lee can describe details in detailed or stark terms, she never uses a big word when a small one will work just as well. This helps one to stay with the elegant simplicity of Scout’s mind and Atticus’ dedication to doing what is simply right.
The timing comes through a child as well. Sometimes the school year can drag on and so does the narrative. The trial is a page turner, as it would be, both for her and for the town around her. After that, everything slows down again until you are itching for something to happen and yet, when it does, it is truly shocking.
This book is moment to moment truth. She never hijacks the narrative to make a point. When Scout wants to get rid of having her aunt there, she doesn’t get her way. The aunt stays. And why? Because there are truths that Scout can’t see but they are there anyway.
Last thing that moved me more than any other time I read it was the fact that, after we finally meet Boo, he is never seen again. Again, not the way Scout would want it,
but the truth nonetheless. It is the image of Boo back in his house after that breakthrough, after Atticus says to him, simply, “Thank you for my children Arthur,” is the haunting image that will be with me for a long time to come.
I loved coming back to “To Kill A Mockingbird.” And I know I will return to it again and love it. It is a part of our lives and we will always need to be reminded of it.
I urge anyone out there to reread it if, like me, you haven’t for decades. It is true. It will not disappoint.
And now…..
I picked three titles again. But one gave me a little frisson of excitement. It is I, Alex Cross by James Patterson. Named for the entire Alex Cross series, it is the first one. I love mysteries. I’ve never read Patterson. Looking forward to it!
1/14/19 – 50 PAGES IN –
FINALLY!! A book I can’t wait to read! I keep finding myself taking a few minutes and reading a little more.
I confess that I’m shocked I haven’t read Vonnegut but I’ve read a lot of Tom Robbins, who obviously learned every trick in the book from old Kurt.
The voicing is so clear, so unique and so current! And then – to realize that this came out the year I was born. In 1959! That’s amazing.
Anyway, I love it. I love that I have no idea where it is going. So far, I am a dyed in the wool Vonnegut fan. So zany! So ground breaking, in every way.
2/15/19
Okay. Finished it.
I realize, as I read these books in a drawn out, little bit at a time fashion, that there is a gulf that will always be there, most likely with each of them. I will never know the feeling of having discovered a book or an author in real time. Would I have been running to friends and saying, “You gotta check out this Kurt Vonnegut?” I am reading these classics since they were pronounced classics – after tons and tons of people have read them, loved them and never forgotten them. Hence, the votes they got.
Will I even feel that way with the ones I have already read? Detached from a totally present day experience?
That said, this was quite the interesting read. As I said earlier, I never knew where it was going. After a while, with no really clear point that he was aiming for, I grew restless. By the end, I was fairly happy it was over and done with.
But I still never once knew where I was headed, because the thing went everywhere but in the end, there really wasn’t a point. I’m sure that, when it came out, there were probably a bunch of paid eggheads that discussed what it was really about. But I doubt that they enhanced anything about it or got to more of the truth of it by doing that.
In the end, this is a brilliant, zany mind that readers get a chance to hang out with, grateful with each page that his mind could stay for the length of time required to finish a book. But it was definitely, more than anything else, a journey into a mind like no other.
The question that continues to visit me is – will I pick up another book by these authors after this quest is done? I might read another Outlander. Might. Doubt I would read another Junot opus. Life these days feels tough enough. Vonnegut? Maybe. My husband has another title of his that he loved years ago. Who knows? I might want to wander back into that mind.
Last point. The ending was lovely. So happy that he had the grace in there to give us a graceful exit.
And now, I will either give myself a break and read something pulpy and fast or the next one I pick. Depends on the next one I pick. Hm…
Hours Later –
My husband went to a gig and I went to get my box of titles. At this point, I have allowed myself to pick three titles each time and then to pick one book out of that. The reason being that I really want this to be as organic as possible and if I am just not feeling that first title, organic might fly out the window. I think I’ll know if I am pulled to it in some way. It’s been pretty smooth and effortless – to this point.
Oddly enough, I think that, all three times, I have gone with the first title I picked.
This time, I picked PBS readers’ first choice and a book I have loved for a lifetime (except when I was little and first read it – Boo Radley scared me!) – To Kill A Mockingbird.
God, even that title!
During the time you could vote for the PBS contest, this was one of the 8 that I voted for. More than that, I think it deserved to win.
I picked two other books after Mockingbird just for fun, but they held no sway. I was already preparing myself to read Mockingbird again. I debated whether or not to wait till the end of all 100 to read the titles I picked if I had already read them. But then, as with so many of the weird constructs in my brain, I thought, why? What’s the point of that?
Besides, it has two major things in its favor. One is that I don’t really have to plan my timing around reading this book, as it is utterly timeless. As a point of fact, it very well might even feel a bit more civilized that the world we are currently living in.
And that brings me to a second point. It is the epitome of sanity after just having read Kurt Vonnegut!
I am curious about what reading it this time will bring….
But even though I’m turning 60 this week, I still feel the need to hug Atticus Finch and have him read me a bedtime story. So I think we are good to go…
Well surprise, surprise. After I quietly wound down and out of Outlander, I considered my options. Or lack of options, if you want to see it that way.
Before starting this 100-book trek, I had considered whether I would read one of these books on the list and then one or two more pulpy things in between. But I wasn’t sure.
I mean, I loves me my mysteries where a mind like mine that wanders hopelessly in a million directions can reorient itself within a paragraph! It’s what those books are written for, God bless um, so you can read 5 pages at the beach.
But then, treat though that might be, could I stay more focused if I just stayed with these highbrow books, rather than satisfying my cravings for literary junk food?
And when that scary day arrives for me to once again tackle Beloved (wow), wouldn’t it be better to read language at least half as dense before it, like a ramp up?
Well who knows, and winding down from Outlander, I wouldn’t have been able to predict what would be a good follow up.
So I did my ritual of picking out a title from my box of green titles and I picked this. It wasn’t something I was drawn to from the list. Even staring at the title didn’t pull me in. But to my surprise, I suddenly became a human obsessed. I literally could not imagine reading anything in between. I wasn’t foaming at the mouth or anything, but I wanted this book in my hands before the end of the night.
I called my local bookstore. They had just sold out of their last copy but could order it for me and it would be in by the next week. Next week?! No. I called my local
library and they didn’t answer but I looked up the hours and knew they were open.
Went over, no book. They could get it by next week. I made the request, got a library card – good thing to have anyway. Went home and called up to the Barnes & Noble
in Santa Rosa, about 40 minutes away. They had it.
A real bonus with regards to this obsessional behavior was that my husband was out at a gig, so I didn’t have to weather the look of supreme dubiousness I would get if I had to tell him I was racing out into the night to get a book in Santa Rosa! Nope, I was spared that. Popped my dog, Poppy, into the car and off we went.
The college student at Barnes & Noble who rang me up told me that she had had to read another one of Junot Diaz’s books for school. I asked her how she liked it. She was honest and said that it was okay, considering that she had to read it. I knew exactly what she meant. We talked briefly. I told her I’d always loved to read, but remembered the utter joy of finishing school and then being able to read whatever I felt like.
Looking at this book, it has won a Pulitzer Prize. This is a huge boost for me. I think I might have mentioned that I was never interested in being in a book club, because I didn’t want to be forced to read something I wouldn’t pick myself. But at one time, I read about three Pulitzers in a row and loved them all to distraction, so I tried to organize a Pulitzer book club in my neighborhood. Sadly, the first book we read was a dud and I think we dropped it after that.
Anyway, I’m jazzed to read Oscar. I have no idea what to expect.
12/12/18
Well, this started off with a bang. Reading a truly unique voicing in a book can really be the shit! Seems to me that you can read about almost any subject if the way it is written about and the language used – kind of explodes in your head.
Diaz does a kind of wonderful thing. He establishes his written Universe and his way of storytelling and then he keeps breaking his own rules. It’s cheeky and it’s fun. All of a sudden, he has an aside with us and then, just as quickly, we aren’t being talked to anymore! The sort of perfunctory way he establishes that and then takes it away makes a statement. “Damn Skippy, I intended to do that!”
He breaks a lot of rules. Probably most importantly, he has the talent to do it.
This book is the story of Oscar, this poor Dominican kid – with an abusive mother and unusual sister – who grows up a little slow, hopelessly nerdy and overweight. He never catches a break. Never. No, I don’t mean till the end of the book. I mean never.
One of the reviews at the start said something to the degree of – in any other hands, this story would be unerringly sad and depressing, but in Diaz’s nomenclature, it is funny and dynamic.
I’m with that. I read a third of the book before I even started thinking about it. I was on the ride.
And then. Sadly, he gets Faulkner-like on my ass. And I hate Faulkner! Suddenly, we break with him and hear life through his sister’s whole life story. I guess it is interesting and still written well, but on the other hand, I’m left thinking, geez. He had a head of steam going with Oscar. Is he bored? Must we break into another person’s story at this point?
I realize that it may all be explained as time goes by. But then, he goes into the mother’s life and that’s where I want to toss the book across the room. I get that she probably has reasons for being as shitty a mom as she is, but nothing so far has led me to want to know about it. I was, in fact, feeling quite happy that she was only depicted through the kids’ eyes. That made her a bit more easy to take.
Ah well, we will see where we end up here. More later.
1/5/19
Almost done with Oscar – about 60 more pages.
I’m sure you are getting that I am no fast reader. I’ve never been fast, even back when I had a lot more time to do it. My life is stupid busy and what’s more, I’ve lost my late night reading abilities a ways back. Some of you who are closer to my age will recognize how you start to distrust that you will remember stuff after you get tired enough.
At any rate, I’m kinda glad I’m busy because this book is relentlessly intense and hopelessly sad. I recognize that the quotes on the front and back of the book say that it would be that sad if it weren’t for Junot’s amazing, bat-out-of-hell writing style. And that’s true. His style is unique and amazing. But after 200 pages, the sad is the dominant thing.
I’m aware of this luster that I have to guard against – the reading of something that others have already called great and worthy of this list. That is a lot to live down for a book and I’m trying to see through that luster; to see what I might think if I just picked it up.
It is searing. I do love how he breaks all the writing rules when he feels like it – who is actually talking to whom, outcomes like future death of a character stated years before that person dies and deep in the middle of a story about them happening now, or a casual ‘I’ stuck in there – who is that? Stuff like that.
I can certainly see why teachers assign Junot Diaz books. It feels very real that Diaz is speaking from characters that we don’t hear from an awful lot, characters that many people see themselves in and thus are liberating by the telling of their story.
A Latina waitress saw me reading this book and offered that she loved it. I got it instantly. His blatant stating of history from this point of view and the things that have seldom made their way into contemporary books must feel unbelievably validating and even liberating to many readers.
There is no question why it got the Pulitzer. This is a major new writer who has gone on to prove himself worthy of all the adoration he gets. This book is unlike any other I have ever read. It’s easy to see why people who were completely taken by this will never forget it. I might never forget it.
Two things will prevent it from being one of my favorites. One is the sheer relentlessness and butchery of every single character in the thing. Though I know, I know, it rings completely with truth. And the second hold out for me is that this isn’t a form I can easily cotton to – jumping around to different voices in different times. I never thought of myself as needing a linear story till I read this one.
I’m glad to have been reading it and I CAN’T WAIT to finish it.
1/12/19
Finished Oscar Wao. Where it had initially been depressing, it ended up even more depressing.
I got it. I got it. I GOT IT!
I’m not sure I can understand the people who said they enjoyed returning to this and reading it again. That would describe a different huckleberry than yours truly. I would, without question, run to a sequel to Outlander first. [I mean, that could happen. Not soon, though.]
So, continuing in my obsessed way, I went to get my box of folded titles. I don’t mind telling you, I was scared. Outlander was long but it was a veritable Disney romp compared to this last little opus.
I told myself that I could make up the rules as I went along with this project. I know my limitations – and if I pulled an even harder title to follow this one, this project could fizzle out pretty darned fast.
The title I pulled was A Confederacy of Dunces. I had read that book and loved it. When people were voting for the list, it was one of eight that I consistently voted for.
But it felt wrong for right now. So I told myself I would pull three titles and pick from them.
The second title I pulled was Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. I’m almost embarrassed to say that I have never read any Vonnegut. In school, I read some authors that followed in his footsteps, but I was never assigned him.
A huge plus for this title was that I had recently bought it. I don’t even know why. I knew it was on the list but I hadn’t yet decided to read the whole list. Could have been the fact that the two women in my vocal trio loved it and they have lived very healthy, happy lives!
At any rate, it seemed like a great coincidence that I already had it. Plus, without even starting it, it clearly has a whole different rhythm to it and therefore, it stood a chance of clearing my head.
Didn’t have to pick a third title. This was it.
October 13, 2018
I picked my first book!
BEFORE READING –
Sounds exciting. I think I saw a film about this years ago. Beyond that, I’m happy to start with something that sounds like a swashbuckler of a tale, rather than something long and cerebral.
All for now.
120 PAGES IN –
I’m so excited that this is my first book! It is a fun, adventurous yarn, pure and simple! Gabaldon is a fine storyteller and her descriptions at the beginning of the book amazed me with their succinct detail. I thought – if this is a book that is constantly moving to different times, etc, she is the perfect author for it. So far, so good!
10/23/18 –
Holy crap! My maiden voyage book here made #2 on the nation’s PBS list! I feel so lucky to be reading it!
11/10/18 –
I am almost to page 400, so well over half. You can tell by the date that I’m not moving all that fast. So many feelings…
This is a long book and it isn’t based on nonstop adventure. Don’t get me wrong – I’m thrilled to start off the list with it as I try to build up my childhood ability to read something this long. If it had been purely cerebral, I think I might have been sunk before I even got started. There is no bridge to gap to be at one with this book and that is a really good thing.
I have been interested in the story the whole way. I have never had the thought that I didn’t want to see what happens with them (although, admittedly, probably not curious enough for seven books worth).
But it isn’t really a page turner. It is almost a bit sudsy. He looks at her; she looks at him. There is nature all around. They have sex again.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m a girl so I like the thought of a big burly, scarred Scottish warrior giving head. Sure. Fun! Though I do question the 20th time she writes it in a book that is over 600 pages. And yeah, rollicking adventure is massively preferable to a treatise on man’s inhumanity to man or a description of an English parlor. Shit like that.
So on I go. Nothing compels me turn the page but I’m happy to and I like all the characters and the writing. She is amazing in creating so many different yet easily definable characters in this castle, but then, that’s why she is so right for this job.
And if you are delighted to your core to fantasize about being transported back in time to this time and place, then I’m sure you are salivating so much by the page I’m on that your friends are suggesting you get a checkup. But they can’t find you because you have already bought a one way ticket to that little town where they dress up like Outlander all the time and have parties.
Me? I don’t know what happens next. But I kinda hope it happens soon…
11/26/18
I have to admit it – I’m slogging my way through the end of this with about 100 pages to go.
I’m also dodging all the endless ads for the very popular TV show of the same name. I have this thing about wanting to visualize my own characters. I’m piss poor at visualizing to begin with, so it is more of a feeling of who each person is.
I wrote a series of books and had this knockdown drag out with the cover designer (a good friend and fun to argue with) about how I didn’t want to see the main character on the cover. I only wanted to see her blonde hair flying by. I wanted to let anyone imagine whoever they saw her to be. So I don’t want to see their Claire and Jamie. I have my own.
Wouldn’t even watch Lonesome Dove, possibly the most widely acclaimed mini series of all time other than Roots. Lonesome Dove is my favorite book, after all. I love both Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, but they simply weren’t my Gus and Call and I wasn’t willing to change.
I like these characters but great honk. This is long and dense and at times sudsy…
I used to have this thing I did when I was doing film reviews back in the day. I would write the review and then wait for a couple of days to see how and whether the film stayed with me or not. The result was often fairly surprising, in both directions.
So Outlander may stay with me. Time and finishing the damn thing will tell!
12/8/18 –
Okay, finished it! Did I like it? Yeah, on the whole, it was really enjoyable. I don’t think I would sew costumes to wear or attend conventions for it. I think I would feel immediately out of synch with anyone who loved it.
But the climactic final scene between them was really well written and engrossing. And you have to applaud her scope, taking you intimately into scenes that play true and feel real.
The two lead characters have a lot of love between them that feels beautiful – surprisingly, not incredibly hot, but romantic, to be sure. Then it goes along too long and here come the suds. But then, to the writer’s credit, it affects you again, when you didn’t think it would.
I’m interested in how this holds up after I’ve read some of the others. I also really feel that my judgment could be a bit jaundiced with regards to this and many of the books, due to people calling it their favorites ever. Nobody wants to go with the crowd. But I’ll stay open. Time and a few more books will tell.
I’m one down and still hoping, after this opus totaling out at over 600 pages, that I get something a bit easier next time. But who knows…. Well, we will, in a second! I’m off to get my box of titles…
As I prepared to start, this hunger felt a bit new to me. I was hungering for the depth of conversation found in these books.
I talk to tons of people every day in my life and work. The conversations are wonderful. But I wanted to go further. I wanted the challenge and the depth of these books. Well. Maybe not 50 Shades of Gray (easily my pick for the most confusing choice in the 100), but you get the overall idea.
I wanted to force myself to stop my life for stretches of hours to disappear into these stories. It’s what I always did in my childhood. Could it still work now?
I also felt hungry for some great expression and important thoughts. I’m scared that I won’t be able to stay with them for hundreds of pages – my focus is busy and scattered – but I want to try.
I loved amazing stories. And my life would benefit from a nice dose of disappearing!
The upshot of all these thoughts is that I shot my premise already. Shot so soon! I started early, four months before my 60th birthday.
I wrote every title on an equally shaped green square of paper (Yes, that would be a little OCD-ish, I know. I accept that.). I quickly finished the three books I was already reading, so that I could hurry up and start.
With my job as the director of a music department, it was my busy season. What a perfectly perverse time to start! Right when my schedule won’t allow this, I must try it.
Might as well get this reading party started!
And to think, I never joined a book club because I didn’t want to have to read anything that I didn’t want to read. This was a firmly held belief on my part and lasted years. And to think that now – sooner or later – I have signed up to read War & Peace.
Times change. Or I’m deranged. Time will tell!
Here we go…
I was going to turn 60 in February – and I did!
I guess the only thing you need to know about me at this point (I’m bound to overshare as the time goes on) is that I love to read. I’m a writer too, but reading has always been…a passion seems too trite. It has been an essential part of life, like brushing your teeth.
At any rate, like many of you, reading became a drag throughout school, having to jump between Beowulf and Jane Austen. But then, upon graduating, I discovered anew the joys of following whatever authors I felt like and that has led me throughout my life.
Thinking about it, I’ve always loved bookstores for that reason! Leafing through books among kindred spirits, all of us sharing the same delicious secret to happiness – a great book.
Then last year, I discovered PBS’s 100 Greatest Reads. I voted on a handful of the titles over the summer. And when I watched the final results of the order of the list, based on the voting of thousands of us, I realize what a truly great list it was. Multi-ethnic, old and new, books meant for teens as well as books only a 60-year old might like. And I realized I should read the whole list in my new decade of life.
Now let me say that this list scares me. Truly.
Oh sure, I can’t wait to read Charlotte’s Web and A Confederacy of Dunces again. I’m stimulated thinking of
revisiting Invisible Man, a book that I read as a kid and though I can’t remember it well, I’m relatively sure I had no context for it in my life at the time. I’m yearning to revisit The Color Purple and The Sun Also Rises…
But I’m scared of a lot of them too. First off, reading Lonesome Dove again is scary because it was my favorite book of all time! So, to read it again, it feels like there is a lot to lose.
I didn’t watch Game of Thrones because it felt positively icky. And if I didn’t watch it, would I be able to read it?
Also petrified that I won’t be able to finish stuff like Moby Dick, Crime & Punishment and War & Peace? Yeah, I like to read, but those kinds of books scare me from page one!
And what about Handmaid’s Tale and those books that have unbelievably prescient and dire warnings about the culture, when we are seemingly headed in just that direction with no way to stop it? Although, having said that, I love the late Roger Ebert’s take on creative ventures. He says that something truly brilliant is never depressing. Guess I’ll get a chance to test that out!
I’m scared I’ll read Kurt Vonnegut and not get it.
While I don’t mind reading Siddhartha or Little Women again, my heart is filled with dread at the prospect of reading Beloved again – brilliant but way too dense a prose for me. Or trying out Grapes of Wrath one more time, which has always seemed to be the dictionary definition of relentless. But then again, nowhere to go but up from there! Most of these were read a long, long time ago, Who knows? Maybe I’ll love them! Then again…
And my biggest fear is this. I live an incredibly busy life, with lots of work and people in it. My abilities to focus are minimal and dwindling! So I’m scared of abandoning my mysteries that I can pick up mid-page and know who everyone is and what’s happening – and going to true fiction which demands and deserves true focus. That fear, however, comes with a tiny hope that my focus will be enriched by my commitment to this process.
I determined that I would write all the titles on scraps of paper and pick the next title when I was finished with the one before. This has been absolutely great so far. Even if I could barely get to the end of something, I always couldn’t wait for the next title to be picked!
These are most assuredly not reviews. Every one of these books has already been tried by the court of public opinion and found to be a classic. So these are just my truthful takes on what I read. I welcome your comments as well.
My personal warning: I am fairly intelligent and perceptive at times. And at other times, I am a dip shit. Technical, I know. No one who knows me would agree with that second self-perception but I know better. So the point I’m making is that I may miss the point of the book entirely! Or I might come up with a slightly different twist on a book, based on ignorance and/or a lack of depth of history and respect for the way it should be read. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.
I will tell you what I love about each, what stays with me, what I don’t get, what happily surprises me, what hugely disappoints me. Whatever. I love what I love. And I’m sure you are the same!
I’m no expert. I’m just a girl who reads a lot.
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Stopping to add something here. I wanted this to be a blog, so that I would really stick with it. And I have done so for months. The reading is well underway. The blog is the part that is only starting now. So my apologies for going between past and present tense with no seeming linear continuity. When I start to write about the books themselves, I will be speaking about them in the present tense, keeping it the way I wrote it at the time. Part of doing a blog is not changing it later, right?