Posts Tagged ‘novel’

If you’ve read Ulysses you will know that it is full of Irish vernacular, fusions of literary styles and a fog of general confusion that makes it very difficult to follow what is going on.

Or so I thought, until I read Finnegans Wake. It turns out that Ulysses was really more of a warm-up for James Joyce. I now yearn for the comparatively clear plot of Ulysses in which, for some stretches, I could follow what was going on, without the aid of Wikipedia.

I have now finished reading Finnegans Wake and I have literally no idea what happened in it. The language seems even more esoteric, the plot even more muddled. I think there was some stuff about a butcher, who used to be a baker, but is now just a butcher, and sells liver as a special. Also one of the characters was called Anna Livia. The rest is a blur.

Even Wikipedia does not know what it is about. I went to see if I could follow by reading the plot description alongside the book and here is what the article said:

Despite the obstacles, readers and commentators have reached a broad consensus about the book’s central cast of characters and, to a lesser degree, its plot. However, a number of key details remain elusive.

Thanks for that. I don’t recommend reading it. You will probably be able to make more sense of it than I did, but maybe not that much.

Galápagos is a Kurt Vonnegut novel and there are some mild spoilers below.

Told from a million years in the future, it is narrated by a ghost who has watched humanity evolve from the big-brained creatures we are today into a species similar to seals that spend all day in the sun, eating and mating.

Elina promised me she could tell me all this because you get it all at the start of the novel. However, you don’t. You only find out he is a ghost halfway through. Maybe I could have worked it out, but it’s hard to say given I already knew that was the case.

I’m coming to the conclusion that I am not a fan of Vonnegut’s work. As with Slaughterhouse Five, nothing is ever particularly clear, he just slowly drip-feeds you information throughout the story. Good concept, and an interesting story, but I found reading it quite hard work.

When reading A Song of Ice and Fire you soon get into the George R. R. Martin routine. Nothing happens for ages and then loads of people die. The first book of A Feast for Crows follows a similar vein but with surprisingly few deaths. Which just leaves the large spaces of nothing happens.

That is not to say it is not enjoyable. The large amount of nothing that happens in each novel is politically interesting and the constant changing between characters keeps things fresh. I enjoyed the last book more though. Perhaps it’s all building up for the second half.

1914 was a simple time. Back then, you could actually work out what was happening in a James Joyce novel. This is why the description of the book includes the following helpful line.

This book holds none of the difficulties of Joyce’s later novels, such as Ulysses, yet in its way it is just as radical.

It is indeed more comprehensible. The opening dialogue of each story may not be quite as verbose as a Jane Austen novel, but you can pretty much work out what is going on within the first half of the story (the book itself being a collection of short stories).

In some ways though, this takes away a little piece of the James Joyce magic. The descriptions, by being less surreal, become a little less vivid as well.

Sometimes I can make it quite a way into a novel before I can work out what it is actually about. Very occasionally, I get the whole way through. This is one of those times.

For the first chapter, I wouldn’t even work out who the characters work. I thought they might be anthropomorphised animals. It eventually turned out they were children. That is about all I got until I read through the Wikipedia article.

It reminds me a lot of Ulysses and indeed does use the stream of consciousness narrative employed by Joyce. However, unlike Joyce, who paints a beautiful and linguistically-inspiring picture which his rambles, William Faulkner failed to capture my imagination, leaving only the barely-intelligible plot.

From a literary perspective, it is certainly interesting. However, it ranks 6th on Modern Library’s list of 100 best novels. Is that justified on a list that puts The Grapes of Wrath at 10th and Nineteen Eighty-Four at 14th? No.

If you are a big reader you may well read A Storm of Swords as one book. However, if you are like me, reading a book longer than Anna Karenina is no small undertaking.

To make it easier I read Part 1 earlier. Even so, it is still a meaty novel, twice as long as your typical one. What a novel it is though. The more I got into it, the more I could not put it down.

I have only seen Game of Thrones up until the end of series 3 and A Storm of Swords goes beyond that so for the first time in the series I was breaking new ground.

There is a special circle of Hell in which George R. R. Martin will be subjected to all the things he has done to my favourite characters.

As with any instalment of A Song of Ice and Fire, lots of people died. Some of them I was pleased about, some I was annoyed about, some of which I was just surprised at.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel Margaret Atwood. It describes a near-future dystopian world in which democracy has been replaced by a fundamentalist Christian military government and re-structured society.

In said society women are divided into functions for men. The protagonist, Offred, is a handmaid. She is used for breeding purposes only. Still, better than being a Martha, or shipped off to the colonies…

The final piece of the puzzle of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series (a trilogy in seven parts). Forward the Foundation follows Hari Seldon from the time he decides to work on psychohistory (at the end of Prelude to Foundation) and the founding of the First Foundation on Terminus.

Once you have read all the other books, you pretty much know what is going to happen. However, it is still an entertaining read. Everything slots in and completes the story.

I almost gave up on The Rosie Effect. Sure, I enjoyed The Rosie Project. But it did not make me feel like I had to read the sequel. So I mulled over striking it off my reading list. However, just before I did I went back to Bill Gates’ blog to re-read his post about it. It raved about it, so I kept it on the list.

I’m glad I did. As Gates points out, life through the prism of autism provides a surprisingly identifiable view of the human condition.

It picks up a while after The Rosie Project finishes and tells the story of Don and Rosie as they prepare to start a family.

I also found out that “cross-nursing”, the practice of swapping babies to feed, can be beneficial for the immune system of the child. However, a little research suggests there are serious risks and other complications. Anyway, something to discuss with Elina later…

This book is simply horrible.

I mean, I don’t know what I was expecting when I decided to read a novel that was essentially a love story between a 12 year old girl and a pedophile, but it was definitely worse than I had anticipated. Though at least the details of their carnal acts were glossed over.

I have sometimes seen Lolita costumes on eBay. Who could possibly think that was a good idea? Only, I vainly hope, someone who had not read the book.