April 1, 2012 · 9:38 pm

Storm of Swords: Admissions

                           I really want to like the Song of Ice and Fire series. It has a lot of great things going for it: engaging characters with complicated motivations and principles, developed plot lines and some (just some) engagement with literary devices. All the same, in this third book I’ve read in the series I’ve had enough. I’m done with the plot lines that, while rich in detail, plod along with such protracted pauses that I am left indifferent when climaxes do occur. So while I might enjoy the complicated characters Martin has crafted, I can seem to care about them when bad things happen to them (as they invariably do) because it’s taken so much plot work just to get there. When you add in the mediocre language and heavy handed symbolism and descriptions I find myself struggling to read the remaining 400 pages.

That’s right, after 600 pages of slogging I’m giving up. True to my New Year’s resolution, and with the encouragement of S. I’m just stopping. I feel some guilt thinking that if I could just give it some dedicated time I’d make it through, but really? When it comes to pleasure reading I don’t want it to feel like work and so I’m stopping. Bold, brave, and a little reckless, sure, but there it is.

Also because I have such an amazing list of books recommended! Did I mention that my amazing friends gave me a book of book recommendations? Maybe, but if I didn’t, I’m so excited to get going on the list. And so that’s what I’m going to do – so if you’re a recommender… get excited 🙂

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March 27, 2012 · 3:34 am

Happy Accidents: Terrible

                       I’ve moved cities and so am doing all the usual sorts of new city things: buying plants, biking the major routes, joining book clubs. I found a book club on Wednesday, they met on Saturday, and so I put down the interminable Storm of Swords (no, my blogging hiatus has not been caused by depression or misery, but rather the result of GRRMartin not being able to write a concise plot) in order to pick up Jane Lynch’s totally terrible memoir, Happy Accidents.

What a waste of a day of reading. To think I might have been two hundred pages closer to done Storm of Swords. Or I might have mopped my floors, or written thank you letters, or stare vacantly into space. I can’t even begin to catalogue the ways this book fails. Well, that’s not true, I can, and I will. So here you go: While memoirs are inevitably narcissistic this one achieves a spectacular level of naval gazing, borne, I suspect, from the author’s occasionally observed (and then hastily dismissed) self-doubt and insecurity. Contributing to this reader’s annoyance with the narcissism is the dull account of a life. I’m not one to demand that memoirs only be written by extraordinary people, or by those for whom life has been exciting, challenging or unique; but I do expect a memoir to demonstrate some enthusiasm for the life being described, some general sense that it is worth me reading about. That there ought to be some kind of moral isn’t what I mean, more that there should be a anchoring question, much less mundane than: am I loveable? Or perhaps, just as mundane as that but then explicitly asked and curiously examined.

I’m going to stop before I rant too long about the prosaic language, the lack (get this!) of character development and the annoying tendency to assume that the author is the only person for whom life has been Difficult. I’ll just say that I’m not going to be returning to this particular book club. Even though all the other members found it terrible, I can’t find myself trusting another one of their recommendations. This book exacts too high a price in trying to find friends.

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March 8, 2012 · 3:21 pm

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen: Sweet

    Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is very sweet. It’s got a light hearted plot (UK fisheries scientist is hired by a billionaire sheik to introduce salmon fishing to the Yemen), sympathetic characters and an entirely undemanding set of thematic questions. Reading is is the equivalent to drinking a hot tea after a rainy day: soothing, heart warming and altogether unexciting.

I’d not recommend Salmon Fishing because it doesn’t offer you anything fresh – the characters are all familiar, their concerns pretty standard. Sure the plot is a bit quirky, but it’s a sort of quirk-for-the-sake-of-sweetness that reminds me of young women who wear quirky mittens (me) or people who cultivate quirky habits like only ever wearing odd socks (M.). I grant that the form – a series of diary entries, transcripts, letters, interviews – lends a certain novelty to the narrative form, but it’s nothing we haven’t read before and doesn’t offer enough to make it anything other than another sweet quirk.

And so there you go. A sweet read for this still-receptive-to-the-sentimental reader.

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March 8, 2012 · 3:15 pm

The Lamplighter: First to Fall

     So I made this deal with myself after 10-10-12 that I’d only read books I found to be “good” (noting that “good” doesn’t mean I’m enjoying them necessarily, but rather that I see some merit in reading them) and so true to this promise I’ve stopped reading Anthony O’Neill’s The Lamplighter. I’ve not adopted a particular rule for how long to give the book to win me over (should I read half of it? only a quarter? how soon do you know that a book is no good?), nor have I yet dealt with the terrible guilt wracking me: maybe the book was poised to radically improve? maybe had I given it another 30 pages it would have won me over? And this, I fear, is the trap that led me to finish “Not Without My Daughter” and it’s kind. A compassionate reader has no place in the world of far too many stories to ever read. I hope with practice to be cut throat. No more terrible books! I’ll work on some policy recommendations with respect to how long to keep reading and how to deal with the guilt and keep you posted.

I don’t get it. By all accounts I *should* enjoy The Lamplighter. It’s a historical murder mystery set in Gothic Scotland full of mystery and suspense. But I just didn’t care about the characters, found the pace plodding and the tone dull. So there you go; I stopped reading it half way in and I don’t care to say any more about it.

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