Author Topic: Rate the last book you read.  (Read 194351 times)

Emiliana

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #80 on: February 18, 2009, 04:11:53 AM »
Ask the Dust (John Fante, 1939)

Yeah, so I read this based on how much Emiliana and Ronan seemed to have enjoyed it. It pretty much blew my mind. I love unreliable narrators and this narrator is just completely insane. I found the destructive nature of Bandini and Camilla's relationship and Arturo's self-absorption rather disturbing but not enough to want to stop reading apparently ::). Manic and utterly beautiful writing.

Right, I had meant to ask you to report back...

It is amazing how this book elicits these very strong, very emotional reactions. "Manic" is really the appropriate word for Fante's writing style - it is so full of energy, it doesn't let you go again once it grips you (which is instantly), but there is something unsettling to it as well.

saltine

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #81 on: February 18, 2009, 04:48:08 AM »
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Mark Twain) - It's humorous and thought provoking enough I guess, Twain is really great with satire and the narrative is compelling, unlike most stories involving King Arthur's time. The last few chapters are beautiful as well. I'm not a huge fan of Twain, and I assume his intentions and attacks are not things I agree with, but as a reader I found a ton that I could still relate to modern American society, and that was enjoyable. It read slow at some parts, but overall a solid novel and worth checking out if only to get to the end.

B/B+

So 120 years after the novel was written, " as a reader I found a ton that I could still relate to modern American society" and that deserved a B/B+.  Really?
Texan Down Under

FLYmeatwad

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #82 on: February 18, 2009, 09:55:59 AM »
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Mark Twain) - It's humorous and thought provoking enough I guess, Twain is really great with satire and the narrative is compelling, unlike most stories involving King Arthur's time. The last few chapters are beautiful as well. I'm not a huge fan of Twain, and I assume his intentions and attacks are not things I agree with, but as a reader I found a ton that I could still relate to modern American society, and that was enjoyable. It read slow at some parts, but overall a solid novel and worth checking out if only to get to the end.

B/B+

So 120 years after the novel was written, " as a reader I found a ton that I could still relate to modern American society" and that deserved a B/B+.  Really?

Yes.

The plot isn't terribly engaging, the framing device works to an extent but takes away from the suspense and the end result is fairly easy to discern early on, even if the actual event is shocking, the characters are developed enough, and some of it goes by quickly but the rest is just dull to read. It's an important book, and probably would fight with Huck for Twain's best, though I'm inclined to give the edge to Yankee, but just because it still applies to modern society doesn't mean it automatically deserves an A when there are quite a few flaws. It's a great satire and it's a worthwhile read, but it is far from flawless.

pixote

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #83 on: March 01, 2009, 02:14:52 AM »
Over Sea, Under Stone  (Susan Cooper, 1965)
The first book in the five-part "The Dark Is Rising" series is really ordinary fantasy with very little personality.  I hope the books improve as they go (I'm optimistic since the fourth one won the Newberry Medal and they skipped this first one in adapting the series for film), seeing as I already own the whole box set.  Still, it was good to read something.
Grade: C-

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Colleen

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #84 on: March 02, 2009, 06:11:39 AM »
Over Sea, Under Stone  (Susan Cooper, 1965)
The first book in the five-part "The Dark Is Rising" series is really ordinary fantasy with very little personality.  I hope the books improve as they go (I'm optimistic since the fourth one won the Newberry Medal and they skipped this first one in adapting the series for film), seeing as I already own the whole box set.  Still, it was good to read something.
Grade: C-

pixote

I read them years ago but they definitely get better.  I originally read Silver on the Tree without reading any of the others and was blown away yet mystified by it (not realizing it was the last in a 5 book series).  I read the others as I found them over several years and remember 4 and 5 blowing 1-3 out of the water.

edgar00

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #85 on: March 07, 2009, 11:42:12 PM »



Watchmen, by Alan Moore. 1986-1987.

Set in the mid 1980s, but in an alternate universe in which Nixon is still the United States president, Alan Moore's much praised story is about a world on the brink of nuclear destruction and the place that recently legally banned superheroes have in it. It begins in rather quaint fashion, with the murder of an elder hero, The Comedian (pretty stupid name), who had been working for the government. An old ally of his, Rorschach, a masked vigilante with very dogmatic ideas about good and evil, makes it his duty to investigate this crime. One thing leads to another, and retired superheroes are forced by incredible circumstances to take a stand before the East/West arms race brings the apocalypse.


The story to this comic is very dense and rather layered. The brief paragraph I just wrote really only gives a tiny hint as to what exactly the curious reader will actually discover when diving into the thick of things. Over roughly 350 odd pages, writer Moore marries the notion of superhero comics with political/social commentary, philosophical ponderings on the nature of right and wrong, the deconstruction of a chronological narrative, the juggling of two seperate but related storylines (one being a comic book read by a character in this Watchmen story) and offers some genuine dramatic weight to some very, very flaud superheroes. And arguably some more stuff I'm sure I left out.

What held my interest were the characters. Each was fascinating enough, either for the right reasons, such as Silk Spectre's compassion and Nite Owl's do-gooder nature, or the wrong ones, such as Rorschach's troubled doctrine on crime fighting and ideologies on right and wrong. Their stories were well linked together and I thought intriguing the notion of a world in which superheroes, unless employed by the federal government, were banned from active duty. Moore juggled the narrative nicely, especially givn that he wrestled with several character storylines, each one told with a great number of flashbacks (and Dr. Manhattan's crazy way of thinking about time. Yikes...). I admired the art of Dave Gibbons and John Higgins. everything frame is detailed and rich in colour. Every character thus not only becomes unique and memorable due to the writing, but also thanks to the efforts of the artists involved. The world feels very large and alive. I often paused from my reading to simply admire the pretty pictures. Very pretty they were indeed. Large scale moments or close quarter moments, action sequences or emotional dialogue moments, Gibbons and Higgins did a great job I felt.

As for the political and social commentary, I can understand why this was heralded as great in the 80s. It was a decade which witnessed some rather divisive political debates and waves. It also adds a certain texture to a superhero story. There's more going on than merely a Spider-man/ Green goblin stand off with Mary Jane hanging from a rooftop. The guiding politics championed by the Western governments (in this story basically the American government) and Eastern Bloc heavily influence the world these characters live in. I imagine that Moore's efforts encapsulated the ideas and fears of the counter-movement to the neo conservative zeitgeist of the 1980s. There is a great sense of paranoia that has stricken America and some of our protagonists, as there was back then. Fear of communism, fear of nuclear attack, fear of one's own government, fear of mankind's destructive capabilities. Some of those fears live on till this day in fact. I'm particularly terrified of my own destructive capabilities.


For that very reason I admire the end product. However, as I got deeper and deper into the story and as the references to Nixon, the arms race, the frustratingly barbaric and counterproductive nature we humans are faulted with piled up and so on, a strange thought occured to me. Back in 1985, a comic like this must have seemed, if I may use hyperbole for a moment, groundbreaking in a sense. And while I did genuinely enjoy myself mainly due to the rich characters and the fatalistic universe they inhabited, I kept thinking what the public reaction to the comic would have been had Watchmen been published a couple years ago, during the height (or low) of Bush's presidency, with references to Bush, Cheney, Iraq, the Taliban and the Patriot Act. It seems to me that today's readers and media savvy populace are far more cynical and don't take kindly to heavy handed material. I wondered more than once if released today, Watchmen would have been lambasted for its heavy handedness. The plot and characters I enjoyed very much, and while I appreciated Moore's willingness to give birth to a comic world that felt genuinely relevant, I couldn't help but roll my eyes at times and how unsubtle many bits of dialogue and moments were.

Is that just me who refused to cut the book some slack? Is such a complaint irrelevant due to the richness of the characters, a richness that requires this very politicized world? Is it irrelevant because the story's richness and quality could not survive without the obvious ham fisted moments? Am I possibly terribly off the mark because, somehow, there really isn't any ham fisted at all? Well, I wouldn't take the last option since my gut reaction was that a lot was heavy handed. It's one thing to convince a person that something is better/worse than they think, I think however it's an entirely different matter to change one's mind on what is subtle/heavy handed.

Regardless, I've typed far more than I needed to and I should stop. To sum it up, I really liked it and will go back to rad it again soon. I did not think it was perfect, but as a whole, as a final piece of story telling, I think it's very operatic, very large. Something so big and grand will usually have some small stains (except, apparently, Casablanca), but the fact that I was intruiged from start to finish and that I want to revisit Moore's world again, and soon, is a very good sign.

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'Noke

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #86 on: March 08, 2009, 07:49:33 AM »
Something so big and grand will usually have some small stains (except, apparently, Casablanca)

*sigh*
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.

pixote

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #87 on: March 13, 2009, 05:10:15 AM »
Stand Before Your God  (Paul Watkins, 1993)
The content of this memoir, about an American boy's time in English public schools from age seven until graduating for Eton, never quites match the strength of the crisply readable prose.  It's not bad; just not great.  The passages on writing were surprisingly uninspired, though.
Grade: B-

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FifthCityMuse

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #88 on: March 16, 2009, 05:03:31 AM »
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
I occasionally watch a movie or read a book where I can appreciate the artistry, but have it do nothing for me. Which disappoints me sometimes. Lolita, unfortunately, falls into this category.

Yes, the prose is beautiful. It's the definite highlight of what's on display here. It's playful and elusive, and really brilliant. And while it may have something to do with the fact it took about a month to read, which is far too long, really, I never really found myself falling in love with this.

Admittedly, it's not really my "type" of novel, but even so, I have been known to fall for books which I normally wouldn't. I also found myself really turned off by the afterword as such in my edition, in which Nabokov struck me as arrogant and undesirable.

Really, not the experience I was hoping to have.

worm@work

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Re: Rate the last book you read.
« Reply #89 on: March 16, 2009, 08:38:09 AM »
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
I occasionally watch a movie or read a book where I can appreciate the artistry, but have it do nothing for me. Which disappoints me sometimes. Lolita, unfortunately, falls into this category.

Yes, the prose is beautiful. It's the definite highlight of what's on display here. It's playful and elusive, and really brilliant. And while it may have something to do with the fact it took about a month to read, which is far too long, really, I never really found myself falling in love with this.

Admittedly, it's not really my "type" of novel, but even so, I have been known to fall for books which I normally wouldn't. I also found myself really turned off by the afterword as such in my edition, in which Nabokov struck me as arrogant and undesirable.

Really, not the experience I was hoping to have.

Yeah, the prose is stunning though, right? Mine doesn't seem to have the nasty afterword thankfully. I still like it a lot just because I could probably just open the book up to a random page and find at least one line or turn or phrase that is so beautiful that I want to remember it.
On to The Moviegoer now, I hope :)?