another knitting blog

round one: the cloud school

Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell

This book has a unique and maddening structure: there are six loosely related stories representing six genres successively wrapped within one another so that for the first half of the book you are starting and leaving the beginnings of things. After reading the central story at one go, you are back a the end of story five, then four, and so on. This structure did not endear this book to me; I resented constantly being interrupted. Moreover, it didn't help my experience as a reader that the book was in such high demand from the library that I could never renew it, but had to keep returning it and then waiting sometimes several weeks to be able to check it out again. That just made the bifurcated stories feel even more disconnected. 

This is the book that won the 2005 tournament. Some people really liked it. I would not discourage you from giving it a chance, but I'm not making any promises.

The Finishing School by Muriel Spark

This is actually more of a long short story or a novelette than a novel. Unlike the protracted ordeal of Cloud Atlas, I read this book comfortably in an afternoon. It's a lark; but don't pay much, if anything, to read it--it will be done all too quickly.  Perhaps it should packaged in a volume together with Spark's better known work of teachers and students, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Annoyance almost made The Finishing School the winner, but after cooling off, I reconsidered.

Winner: Cloud Atlas

round one: heir to the glimmering human capital

Heir to the Glimmering World : A Novel by Cynthia Ozick

A young woman becomes a factotum for a refugee German Jewish scholar and his family. Many quirky types are introduced.

My memory of this book is fading. I guess it didn't make much on an impression on me. 

Human Capital: A Novel by Stephen Amidon

I didn't finish this book; I got bored and skipped to the last chapter. Teenaged delinquents (hot and cold varieties), middle-aged suburban housewives, desperate investment types (the future foretold?), and real estate speculation.

Even though I can barely remember HttGW, I do remember finishing the book.

Winner:Heir to the Glimmering World

round one: jonathan strange & the rope eater

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke

I would describe this book as Harry Potter for adults, except that Harry Potter isn't not for adults, so that doesn't quite capture it. This is also a book about magic, but not boy wizards, rather, gentleman magicians.

I enjoyed this book almost completely. It's long--more than a thousand pages as a paperback--but Clarke was able to keep the story moving and changing in a way that compelled me and I finished it rather quickly. Also, unlike my common complaint about modern fiction, there was a satisfying, if not completely pat, conclusion to the whole enterprise.

The Rope Eater by Ben Jones

A Union soldier deserts and ends up on an exploration ship bound for the arctic. What do the explorers seek? What will they find? Entertaining, if a bit flaky near the end.

I read this book during the summer when arctic ice floes and frost-bitten digits were almost unimaginable. Don't read this book in the winter.

Up against three of the previous competitors (maybe even The Plot Against America), The Rope Eater would have been victorious. Too bad; I was completely captivated by JS & Mr. N.

Winner: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

silly

mostly not blogging about my knitting because I've lost confidence in my photography. knitting every day.

round one: the news from the inner circle

The News from Paraguay: A Novel by Lily Tuck

This book starts off well enough as the story of European woman involved with a Paraguayan general, but devolves into nonstop debauchery, pestilence, and gruesome death. On the upside, during the time I was reading this book, I attended a classical guitar recital. Some of the selections were by the Paraguayan guitarist Agustin Barrios, which I enjoyed very much and paid closer attention to as a result of the Paraguay connection. Look into Barrios; pass on this novel.

The Inner Circle by T.C. Boyle

Before reading this novel--a fictionalized account of the research conducted by Alfred Kinsey--my entire awareness of Kinsey came from the lyrics of the Cole Porter tune Too Darn Hot.

 

According to the Kinsey report
ev'ry average man you know
much prefers to play his favorite sport
when the temperature is low

After reading this novel and watching a PBS special and the Kinsey biopic starring Liam Neeson, I probably know more than I want to about the ground-breaking researcher and his work.

 

As you may imagine there is copius coupling depicted. The most of the names and some of the details have been changed. [This is why I did the additional research--to see how much things were changed].

 

Sex, pestilence, and death versus sex, sex, and sex.

Winner: The Inner Circle

get reading

For anyone who may be interested, this is to alert you that the competitors for The Morning News 2009 Tournament of Books have been announced; so you can start reading now. I'll still be working on 2005. In four or five years maybe I'll get around to these books, including the likely winner, Robert Belano's 2666. The book is over 900 pages long and is touted as masterpiece--how can it miss?

Once again, Powell's is offering a 30% discount on all tournament titles.

This is not turning into another book blog. I'll be back to knitting soon. This week I'm away from home and my camera. Also, the temps have been below zero since I got here and I didn't bring enough yarn. I'm having to ration my knitting.

round one: the plot against the bad boy's wife

I am not a literary critic, nor a book reviewer in any formal or 'official' sense; I am a reader. I used to read quite a bit and belonged to multiple book clubs. Eventually, however, graduate school happened and I was reading all day for work, and knitting and computer games happened and I found other ways to pass the time, and frankly, I became fatigued by contemporary literature. For years, when I did read for fun, I read classics and mystery novels because, for the most part, they did not annoy. I have an entire rant against authors who are only able to think up the beginnings of books and the editors who let them get away with it (apparently it's now acceptable to only seriously write the first two thirds of a book and then just fill up the last third with whatever random nonsense you come up with just to get the damn thing out the door), but I won't bore you with that.

So,my reviews will not be deep analyses or anything. I will try and keep them short and honest with a minimum of pretense.

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

With World War II on the horizon, what if Charles Lindbergh, and not FDR, were elected President of the United States? What would change? Specifically, what would change for a Jewish boy named Philip Roth and his family? Easy to read for the quality of the writing; difficult to read for the scenes of Antisemitism and the growing sense of dread and panic as a child's safe, familiar world starts to dissolve.

The Bad Boy's Wife by Karen Shepard

This was an unpleasant book full of unpleasant characters. The character in whom I was most interested spent much of the book in a coma. I did not like this book. I do not recommend that you read it.

It's no secret that Plot made it to the final round of the tournament. It is well-written and feels like an 'important' book. Few books can stand against it, but Bad Boy's Wife is a particularly unworthy competitor.

Winner: The Plot Against America

competitive literature

So, for the past couple of years, every March I post about The Morning News Tournament of Books and follow the action with zeal even though I've never read any of the books. This year, I realized that not only had I never read any of the books in the '08 tourney, I'd never read any of the books going back to the first one in '05. Out of 64 contenders, I had read not one. I decided to rectify that.

I now live in a county with an excellent library system, in a neighborhood where the library is conveniently located near the grocery store and my bank. Better yet, the library system is set up so that I have access to almost any book I could want and I never have to interact with an actual human if I don't want. I can sign into my account from home and search for the book I want. Chances are, my tiny local branch won't have the book I'm looking for on hand; but if it's anywhere in the county-wide library network, I can request to have it transferred to my local branch or mailed to me--I always opt for local pick up. I receive an email when the book is available. After I find my request on the hold shelves, I can scan my library card and the book at self-checkout and print out a receipt that tells me due date. Also, a few days before the book is due, I receive an email reminder; and if it isn't on hold for someone else, I can renew the book online. So easy.

Now, there's nothing to stop me from reading the books I wouldn't have taken a chance on before. There are some tournament books I would probably never buy and some I would regret buying. The library is an excellent way to keep my shelves from filling up with half-read, abandoned books.

This past March, I started in on the books from the 2005 TOB and I'm now a little more than half done with the first round brackets. I think I already know who the winner will be, at least I know I have some differences from the way the original tournament played out.  I'll start posting the first round match-ups soon.

Two notes: Although I have generally resisted advertising here, I've signed up for an Amazon Associates account so I can easily post covers and links. No obligation expected. Also, I've been tracking my reading using Goodreads.  This website has made it fun and easy to organize my reading. If you want to be added to my Goodreads friends list, request in a comment here or email me.

the necessities

Made the two mile trek in snow and slush to get a new library book and half-and-half for my coffee. Can survive the weekend now.

Walking in snow and slush is a lot like walking on the beach...and also not at all.

everybody's got a weather story

In Wisconsin, this would be nothing. However, in Wisconsin they have snow plows, salt spreaders, and mountains of sand. In Portland? No.

This is the back yard yesterday afternoon.

Here it is this morning.

It's hard to tell, but that's half a foot of snow under half an inch of ice under another half a foot of snow.

I went out this afternoon and beat some of the snow and ice off the hedges in an effort to keep branches from breaking off. I think the blueberry bushes are goners.

My next concern is the weight of the snow collapsing the awning.

I took today off from work. Tomorrow, I'm going to walk a mile to the closest functional bus route and see if I can make it in. I think it will be days before it's safe for my car on the street.

I'm not traveling to Wisconsin for Christmas this year, but it looks like the Wisconsin winter has come to me.