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Book Reviews
I wrote up some more book reviews. Mostly for my own pleasure, I’m sure! I talk about the books, but there are no real spoilers in here that you wouldn’t learn from the blurb.
The Satanic Verses was hard to get into. I actually started it about a year ago, read about forty pages, then put it aside. I recently thought to give it another fair shot because I see Rushdie referenced so often as one of the great writers of this century, and because the controversy surrounding this book intrigued me (the knighthood that Rushdie recently received and the renewed media-attention concerning the fatwah brought it back under my radar). I’m really glad I gave it another go. What I learned is that if you give this book a chance, it is a wonderful, fascinating miasma of humour, mythology, analogy and symbolism. Several passages, including the brilliant and original opening one where Gibreel and Saladin fall from the sky from an exploded airplane, are extremely funny and ironic. Their relationship with one another and the people around them, and the double-layered path they take is the analogy to our own difficulties and the struggle of acceptance of self. But it were the mythology sequences (the villagers pilgrimage to Mecca and the story of the messiah, his Angel and the opposition and the true controversy about the corruptibility of a text written by men), which were most captivating to me. I love these sort of origin speculations and how dangerous it is to follow blindly, but also by how a certain faith creates a difference of perception (e.g. the alternate versions of what happened to the pilgrimage). Rushdie uses beautiful language that is captivating, and though his book was not what I’d call a page turner as you have to be constantly alert while reading to have complete understanding of what is happening, it was really worthwile, and one of the best books I’ve read this year.
Wikipedia has some very interesting history on this book’s controversy here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_controversy, which is a sad representation of how things are today.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a nicely-written book for the masses. Never did this book surprise me or show me something I hadn’t seen before, and it doesn’t reach the same level as The Kite Runner (though that book also had its flaws). However, it does have very touching passages, and it illustrates once again the sad decline of Afghanistan into its current awful state and the victimisation of its people due to influences from without and within, all in the frame of a narrative about women in the world of men. In this way, it is a sentimental semi-fictional and a tragic semi-informative journey. A good but speedy read without ever becoming original or more than skin-deep.
A book that manages to bring across the atrocity of war and the life-altering, impossible decisions made during these extreme events, while exploring the aftermath, a country’s sensibilities and the influence of past events on the family structure much better is Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. This book promises something refreshingly new, explorative and original, with humor swathed in a layer of irony and tragedy. Foer manages much better than Hosseini to bring across the full ramifications of war, even while never straying into sentimentality or cliché. This book offers the full package: Makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you think. Highly recommended.
The Lovely Bones is a decent book and another easy read. It touches very well on the sadness and insurmountable grief of losing a child, at times well enough that certain passages managed to squeeze some tears from me (and I’m not an easy crier with books). The view of heaven is not particularly profound nor will the idea of heaven ever really make sense to me, but the earth-bound matters are enough to keep the attention close even if matters are a bit too convenient at times. Only, I hated the resolution because of sheer random stupidity.
Never Let Me Go is one of those books that fits into the line-up of for instance 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Giver and Fahrenheit 451 – all books which are interesting, riveting stories of a future gone control-mad. I really liked it and it certainly fits the high standard of the others mentioned, though the one point of frustration I have is the complacency of the victims, which is never really explained and which kept me waiting for at least an uprising which never came (though I suppose that is the point – would be it “human” nature to stay with the familiar/our designated fate or to try and fight for our (individual) rights, as the other books showcased?). The book does build suspension by never giving the answers straight out and keeping you wondering about the true nature of this society until the final pages. If you like (some of) the others I mentioned, then get this book. Get the other books too if you haven’t yet. Great food for thought.
The Satanic Verses was hard to get into. I actually started it about a year ago, read about forty pages, then put it aside. I recently thought to give it another fair shot because I see Rushdie referenced so often as one of the great writers of this century, and because the controversy surrounding this book intrigued me (the knighthood that Rushdie recently received and the renewed media-attention concerning the fatwah brought it back under my radar). I’m really glad I gave it another go. What I learned is that if you give this book a chance, it is a wonderful, fascinating miasma of humour, mythology, analogy and symbolism. Several passages, including the brilliant and original opening one where Gibreel and Saladin fall from the sky from an exploded airplane, are extremely funny and ironic. Their relationship with one another and the people around them, and the double-layered path they take is the analogy to our own difficulties and the struggle of acceptance of self. But it were the mythology sequences (the villagers pilgrimage to Mecca and the story of the messiah, his Angel and the opposition and the true controversy about the corruptibility of a text written by men), which were most captivating to me. I love these sort of origin speculations and how dangerous it is to follow blindly, but also by how a certain faith creates a difference of perception (e.g. the alternate versions of what happened to the pilgrimage). Rushdie uses beautiful language that is captivating, and though his book was not what I’d call a page turner as you have to be constantly alert while reading to have complete understanding of what is happening, it was really worthwile, and one of the best books I’ve read this year.
Wikipedia has some very interesting history on this book’s controversy here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_controversy, which is a sad representation of how things are today.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a nicely-written book for the masses. Never did this book surprise me or show me something I hadn’t seen before, and it doesn’t reach the same level as The Kite Runner (though that book also had its flaws). However, it does have very touching passages, and it illustrates once again the sad decline of Afghanistan into its current awful state and the victimisation of its people due to influences from without and within, all in the frame of a narrative about women in the world of men. In this way, it is a sentimental semi-fictional and a tragic semi-informative journey. A good but speedy read without ever becoming original or more than skin-deep.
A book that manages to bring across the atrocity of war and the life-altering, impossible decisions made during these extreme events, while exploring the aftermath, a country’s sensibilities and the influence of past events on the family structure much better is Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. This book promises something refreshingly new, explorative and original, with humor swathed in a layer of irony and tragedy. Foer manages much better than Hosseini to bring across the full ramifications of war, even while never straying into sentimentality or cliché. This book offers the full package: Makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you think. Highly recommended.
The Lovely Bones is a decent book and another easy read. It touches very well on the sadness and insurmountable grief of losing a child, at times well enough that certain passages managed to squeeze some tears from me (and I’m not an easy crier with books). The view of heaven is not particularly profound nor will the idea of heaven ever really make sense to me, but the earth-bound matters are enough to keep the attention close even if matters are a bit too convenient at times. Only, I hated the resolution because of sheer random stupidity.
Never Let Me Go is one of those books that fits into the line-up of for instance 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Giver and Fahrenheit 451 – all books which are interesting, riveting stories of a future gone control-mad. I really liked it and it certainly fits the high standard of the others mentioned, though the one point of frustration I have is the complacency of the victims, which is never really explained and which kept me waiting for at least an uprising which never came (though I suppose that is the point – would be it “human” nature to stay with the familiar/our designated fate or to try and fight for our (individual) rights, as the other books showcased?). The book does build suspension by never giving the answers straight out and keeping you wondering about the true nature of this society until the final pages. If you like (some of) the others I mentioned, then get this book. Get the other books too if you haven’t yet. Great food for thought.