Books, books, books
Sep. 25th, 2007 05:04 pmI went to the library on Sunday and got quite the magnificent haul.
First of all, the same forces of evil which compelled me to pick up the second Bridget Jones (then return it wiht only about ten pages read, because ow), compelled me to check out Emma. Yes, that one. I keep thinking Austen's one of those people I should like, except that I hate her. Perhaps the women in this one won't simper. I'd like that.
Because apparently one foray into the classics is not enough, I also snagged Hard Times. (I'm giving Dickens another chance after the horrendous high school trip through A Tale of Two Cities, because the last time I gave an author a second chance, it was Steinbeck, and I ended up loving him.) Speaking of Steinbeck, I picked up Cannery Row, which seems vaguely thematically comparable to HT. Maybe not. Also on the list is The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf's first novel. (Come to think of it, she's another author I gave a second chance to and ended up adoring, sort of.) To round it out, there's the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past, which I've been meaning to read for years, and The Wild Irish Girl, which I saw on the shelf, wondered why a book with such a Harlequin-like title would be in the Oxford World's Classics livery, and picked up out of curiosity. The back flap claims it's "a passionately nationalistic novel and a founding text in the discourse of Irish nationalism." Okay, I'm sold. (It has footnotes in the Irish language. This could be awesome.)
Because it's close to Halloween, I checked out a Stephen King (Danse Macabre) and Christopher Moore's Practical Demonkeeping, which I don't think is especially Halloween-related, but sounds amusing nonetheless.
And finally, there's the book I actually started reading once I got home, House of Leaves. It's interesting so far--I wasn't expecting it to be a horror novel--but I can't decide whether the dual narratives and funky placement of words on the page are merely showy tricks hiding a pretty decent story, or completely brilliant. I do enjoy the idea of the author, in essence, criticizing his own story while he's writing it/the audience is reading it. That's kind of awesome, and I can see why it's been called a satire on postmodernism. (It seems like many things satirize postmodernism nowadays. I think we need a new ubiquitous school of criticism. Ultramodernism, maybe.)
I am less thrilled with the purposeful misspellings in both Truant's and Zampano's writings. I can see where it might give a sense of urgency and immediacy, but that wars with my sense of exasperation and irritation at things like "alot." Ugh. Also, I still don't get why "house" is always printed in blue. Perhaps all will become clear in the second half of the book.
First of all, the same forces of evil which compelled me to pick up the second Bridget Jones (then return it wiht only about ten pages read, because ow), compelled me to check out Emma. Yes, that one. I keep thinking Austen's one of those people I should like, except that I hate her. Perhaps the women in this one won't simper. I'd like that.
Because apparently one foray into the classics is not enough, I also snagged Hard Times. (I'm giving Dickens another chance after the horrendous high school trip through A Tale of Two Cities, because the last time I gave an author a second chance, it was Steinbeck, and I ended up loving him.) Speaking of Steinbeck, I picked up Cannery Row, which seems vaguely thematically comparable to HT. Maybe not. Also on the list is The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf's first novel. (Come to think of it, she's another author I gave a second chance to and ended up adoring, sort of.) To round it out, there's the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past, which I've been meaning to read for years, and The Wild Irish Girl, which I saw on the shelf, wondered why a book with such a Harlequin-like title would be in the Oxford World's Classics livery, and picked up out of curiosity. The back flap claims it's "a passionately nationalistic novel and a founding text in the discourse of Irish nationalism." Okay, I'm sold. (It has footnotes in the Irish language. This could be awesome.)
Because it's close to Halloween, I checked out a Stephen King (Danse Macabre) and Christopher Moore's Practical Demonkeeping, which I don't think is especially Halloween-related, but sounds amusing nonetheless.
And finally, there's the book I actually started reading once I got home, House of Leaves. It's interesting so far--I wasn't expecting it to be a horror novel--but I can't decide whether the dual narratives and funky placement of words on the page are merely showy tricks hiding a pretty decent story, or completely brilliant. I do enjoy the idea of the author, in essence, criticizing his own story while he's writing it/the audience is reading it. That's kind of awesome, and I can see why it's been called a satire on postmodernism. (It seems like many things satirize postmodernism nowadays. I think we need a new ubiquitous school of criticism. Ultramodernism, maybe.)
I am less thrilled with the purposeful misspellings in both Truant's and Zampano's writings. I can see where it might give a sense of urgency and immediacy, but that wars with my sense of exasperation and irritation at things like "alot." Ugh. Also, I still don't get why "house" is always printed in blue. Perhaps all will become clear in the second half of the book.
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