Book reviews
Oct. 28th, 2006 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selene_13More reviews, this time from books I read on holiday: Equal Rites, The Kite Runner, Neverwhere, Memoirs of a Geisha and Lolita.
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett. As ever, Pratchett is amazing. This isn’t one of his best. The storyline is a bit thin and Granny is still so underdeveloped I hardly recognised her. The humour is also still in development, though of course it is ever witty. The Other world of the monsters trying to get in remains a bit dodgy and abstract. However, it is still amusing and has a nice commentary on what are the roles of women and men. I’d recommend any of his books, but there are better ones to get to first before this one.
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. A book that came highly recommended to me, and I’ll do the same. This story shows the very tragic degeneration of a country into war and terror. Set in Afghanistan, it shows first the somewhat idyllic life of a country that knows peace, with the upper-class Amir as its voice, and his servant Hassan as its heart. When the Russians invade, the different factions of people, both native and non-native, fall apart and prey on one another. Amir and his father flee to America, leaving their history and childhood behind in an Afghanistan that is going through great and awful changes. Amir, unable to flee his past, returns to an Afghanistan controlled by Al-Qaeda twenty years later. This isn’t a book about history or politics. It is a coming-of-age story about friendship, betrayal and redemption. Especially the climax of the book reads more like fiction than fact. However, the background of Afghanistan’s loss and of Afghani immigrants in America give the story extra depth and poignance, and make this a book that will touch you deeply.
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. The cover says that Neil Gaiman is what Terry Pratchett would be if he’d be locked in a cellar with Franz Kafka for a month. I love that. Gaiman does manage to capture the same sort of wit in a darker, edgier package. Gaiman overlays the world as we know it with magic with great originality and creativity. This story tells of a hidden society existing beneath and above London (which is where the people end up who fall through the cracks). Those empty underground train cars and the warning to “mind the gap” become a lot more ominous and fun. This narrative was so vivid and so imaginable, that I wonder why, oh, why it hasn’t been made into a movie yet? I could see everything as it happened, and wondered all the while what great visuals, effects and characters this movie would have, not to mention it being a very adaptable screenplay. A wonderful story!
Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden. I read the book before I saw the movie (which was yesterday). I understand why the movie did not receive great reviews. It manages to completely miss every cultural and emotional detail, leaving a rather vapid result. The book, however, fascinated me. It was a story I did not want to put down, and I was sorry that there wasn’t more. I wonder how close the male, American author, despite his expansive research, managed to get to relating true Geisha life? No matter, the book is wonderful. The reverence for kimono and make-up, for protocol and honour, for women who are artists practising the art of seduction permeate the book and create a culture which will draw you in. Both historically and socially, this fiction relates something true, all wrapped in an unconventional story of love. Recommended!
I had a good run this holiday. Four novels I greatly enjoyed.
Momentarily I’m reading Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, which I started on the plane home. That means I’ve been reading it for over three weeks now. It’s slow going, mainly because of the pretentious, bombastic language (which seems a narrative choice, but is mainly annoying to read and makes it hard to keep interest). The upside is the controversial topic, which is at times shocking and thus interesting, but which, as the melodramatic prose continues, one gets ‘used’ to (as impossible as that might seem) by the way of repetition. I’ll finish this book, and I do understand why it is important in the matter of topic, but the text itself does not draw my attention. So, I’d only recommend this novel to people specifically interested in the topic.
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett. As ever, Pratchett is amazing. This isn’t one of his best. The storyline is a bit thin and Granny is still so underdeveloped I hardly recognised her. The humour is also still in development, though of course it is ever witty. The Other world of the monsters trying to get in remains a bit dodgy and abstract. However, it is still amusing and has a nice commentary on what are the roles of women and men. I’d recommend any of his books, but there are better ones to get to first before this one.
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. A book that came highly recommended to me, and I’ll do the same. This story shows the very tragic degeneration of a country into war and terror. Set in Afghanistan, it shows first the somewhat idyllic life of a country that knows peace, with the upper-class Amir as its voice, and his servant Hassan as its heart. When the Russians invade, the different factions of people, both native and non-native, fall apart and prey on one another. Amir and his father flee to America, leaving their history and childhood behind in an Afghanistan that is going through great and awful changes. Amir, unable to flee his past, returns to an Afghanistan controlled by Al-Qaeda twenty years later. This isn’t a book about history or politics. It is a coming-of-age story about friendship, betrayal and redemption. Especially the climax of the book reads more like fiction than fact. However, the background of Afghanistan’s loss and of Afghani immigrants in America give the story extra depth and poignance, and make this a book that will touch you deeply.
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. The cover says that Neil Gaiman is what Terry Pratchett would be if he’d be locked in a cellar with Franz Kafka for a month. I love that. Gaiman does manage to capture the same sort of wit in a darker, edgier package. Gaiman overlays the world as we know it with magic with great originality and creativity. This story tells of a hidden society existing beneath and above London (which is where the people end up who fall through the cracks). Those empty underground train cars and the warning to “mind the gap” become a lot more ominous and fun. This narrative was so vivid and so imaginable, that I wonder why, oh, why it hasn’t been made into a movie yet? I could see everything as it happened, and wondered all the while what great visuals, effects and characters this movie would have, not to mention it being a very adaptable screenplay. A wonderful story!
Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden. I read the book before I saw the movie (which was yesterday). I understand why the movie did not receive great reviews. It manages to completely miss every cultural and emotional detail, leaving a rather vapid result. The book, however, fascinated me. It was a story I did not want to put down, and I was sorry that there wasn’t more. I wonder how close the male, American author, despite his expansive research, managed to get to relating true Geisha life? No matter, the book is wonderful. The reverence for kimono and make-up, for protocol and honour, for women who are artists practising the art of seduction permeate the book and create a culture which will draw you in. Both historically and socially, this fiction relates something true, all wrapped in an unconventional story of love. Recommended!
I had a good run this holiday. Four novels I greatly enjoyed.
Momentarily I’m reading Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, which I started on the plane home. That means I’ve been reading it for over three weeks now. It’s slow going, mainly because of the pretentious, bombastic language (which seems a narrative choice, but is mainly annoying to read and makes it hard to keep interest). The upside is the controversial topic, which is at times shocking and thus interesting, but which, as the melodramatic prose continues, one gets ‘used’ to (as impossible as that might seem) by the way of repetition. I’ll finish this book, and I do understand why it is important in the matter of topic, but the text itself does not draw my attention. So, I’d only recommend this novel to people specifically interested in the topic.
