i've already posted my thoughts on everything is illuminated, so i'll talk about the other books i've read recently.
the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, by mark haddon. this book was good. it was a quick read, as i thought it would be, but was really quite engaging. a huge chunk of the second half of the book takes place on one day, where the main character is trying to get to london, and i got really caught up in the way the character was perceiving time and was just rooting for him intensely. the book also does wonderful things with emotion, and the way people with asperger's syndrome process feelings. i also identified with a number of the main character's reactions to external stimuli, as they're actually fairly similar to how i act when i'm having a mixed episode. just in general, the author fully inhabits this character and makes him more believable than any other character i've read in a long time.
animal farm, by george orwell. another quick read. i tried reading slaughterhouse 5 by kurt vonnegut first, but i hated it, so i threw that on the ground and picked up a different tiny old trade paperback of my dad's instead. the first thing that struck me as funny about animal house? is the fact that my copy of the book originally sold for 40¢. and it just got better from there. i guess this book is a staple of, like, freshman english class, but i never read it in school. it is pretty damn simplistic, though -- the parallels with soviet russia are a bit hamhanded. heh. HAMhanded. see, if you've read the book, that's funny, because the leaders of the revolution are PIGS! i got pretty emotionally attached to the characters you're supposed to, which is always a sign of a good book. i would think that this book would really be good for a young adult just learning about soviet russia for the first time, read in concert with history texts. but man, some of the stuff in the book -- like when they dig up lenin's skull and put it in the courtyard for everyone to file by? and when trotsky gets exiled and thereafter blamed for everything bad that happens? it just all cracked me up because the metaphors are just RIGHT OUT THERE. anyway.
portnoy's complaint, by philip roth. i've decided i like philip roth, having previously enjoyed the human stain. i tried to read portnoy a few times before and just found it impossible to get into. i was always like "this goes on for almost 300 pages? just like this?" yup. it does. but for some reason, the third time's the charm, because i was able to become pretty engrossed pretty quickly. but i think i was reading it wrong. i think i was inferring the type of self-deprecation that most of my jewish friends exhibit into his character, when in reality, he's just absolutely self-loathing. i was reading biting, self-effacing humor into everything he says. but at the end, you realize that any humor he may be trying to exhibit is completely put on, and he's really just deadly serious and has no real sense of self-reflection. the way i was reading it made it a lot easier to read, however, because i liked the main character and found him funny. then at the end i'm like, "oh. wait. was i supposed to be hating him this whole time? because i hate him now."
i'm currently reading colors insulting to nature, by cintra wilson, a former columnist for salon.com. it's just a fun comic novel. it's at a higher reading level than chick lit, but it's certainly not high-fallutin'. it's the story of a girl whose drunky showgirl mother has convinced her that she's going to be a big famous star, when really, she's socially inept and has no real talent. the characters are vividly drawn, and there are periodic episodes that are so well-written they make you laugh out loud (i hate hearing that phrase in reviews, but this time it's true--i was snickering under my breath last night so as not to wake segev) or gasp in recognition (the most recent chapter made me realize how much worse my high school experience could have been).
simi is eating my book of stamps. she's not even supposed to be on the desk, but i've really been letting her get away with anything lately.
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