Everyone has read this one. I must admit that I took it on because it is short and sort of familiar and I wanted to get the runs on the board with this blog.
It was bleaker than what I remember it, and I almost shed tears at the removal of the dim but decent Boxer from the scene. I don't think it has dated at all. While Napoleon (there's a subtle hint for you) appears in the original to have been modelled on the long gone and almost as long discredited Stalin, so many others of his ilk, cruel and calculating people, bolstered by a cult of personality, often best nurtured by the intellectually weak, have appeared since Orwell completed this in 1944. Some of them have, mercifully, disappeared - Saddam, Ceaucescu, Tito (maybe he wasn't too bad), Hoxha, Kim Il Sung - but many remain and we will definitely see their like again. And like Benjamin the donkey, for the majority of us, nothing gets significantly better or worse no matter who is in power.
The work is subtitled A Fairy Story and there is an animated version, which I have not seen. In its raw form, though, it is not for kids. It is depressing and chilling. There are parallels in my native Australia with the differences between the once idealistic Australian Labor Party, who brought in genuinely progressive legislation aimed at bettering the lot of the worker, and the ruling business class diminishing year by year. Not a cheery thought, but then Orwell did not intend this to boost the spirits of anyone. And it didn't.
8 out of 10.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
The Water Babies - Charles Kingsley
The last sentence of this book enjoins the reader - who the author addresses as 'my little man' throughout - 'you are not to believe any of this book, even if it is true.'
No one has ever written a book like this, and in some ways it is hard to believe that it is no longer available in print, in its entirety. On the other hand, it is filled with dated allusions - the last chapter refers to 'a certain new lunatic asylum' that the reader is obviously supposed to know about, for example. Moreover, there are disparaging references to Jews, Afro-Americans and, especially, Americans. At one point, something called a Powwow man appears, and this person 'dance[s] corrobory [sic] like any black fellow.' But I get ahead of myself.
The bald outline of the story is probably well enough known. A chimneysweep called Tom drowns (although this is never spelled out explicitly) and becomes something called a water baby, several inches long, that travels across land and sea for many years before he can be redeemed and become a man. His master, the aptly named Mr Grimes, a drunkard with little regard for the welfare of his charges, is similarly redeemed but only partially so, and the book leaves him sweeping the crater of Mt Etna, presumably an endless task.
On his way to rebirth, Tom meets all sorts of living creatures - a fairy with a photograph album filled with colour photos, unknown when the book was published, a sea dwelling creature obsessively possessive of the gold in its realm (yes, I thought of that too), talking turnips who were formerly children who studied too hard, a Buddhist bat, policeman's truncheons that can move by themselves without arms or legs and use their thongs for hanging themselves up. Tom travels across ground made of bad toffee, and oceans galore, and meets characters like Mother Carey, Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby, Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid, and the enchanting girl, Ellie, who eventually becomes his lifetime mate.
Comparisons with Alice in Wonderland and the work of Edward Lear are inevitable. This one is every bit as weird, I am sure, and even the obscure contemporary references are probably worth a Google if you have time. For those in search of something really different, this is highly recommended.
Rating: 8 out of 10.
No one has ever written a book like this, and in some ways it is hard to believe that it is no longer available in print, in its entirety. On the other hand, it is filled with dated allusions - the last chapter refers to 'a certain new lunatic asylum' that the reader is obviously supposed to know about, for example. Moreover, there are disparaging references to Jews, Afro-Americans and, especially, Americans. At one point, something called a Powwow man appears, and this person 'dance[s] corrobory [sic] like any black fellow.' But I get ahead of myself.
The bald outline of the story is probably well enough known. A chimneysweep called Tom drowns (although this is never spelled out explicitly) and becomes something called a water baby, several inches long, that travels across land and sea for many years before he can be redeemed and become a man. His master, the aptly named Mr Grimes, a drunkard with little regard for the welfare of his charges, is similarly redeemed but only partially so, and the book leaves him sweeping the crater of Mt Etna, presumably an endless task.
On his way to rebirth, Tom meets all sorts of living creatures - a fairy with a photograph album filled with colour photos, unknown when the book was published, a sea dwelling creature obsessively possessive of the gold in its realm (yes, I thought of that too), talking turnips who were formerly children who studied too hard, a Buddhist bat, policeman's truncheons that can move by themselves without arms or legs and use their thongs for hanging themselves up. Tom travels across ground made of bad toffee, and oceans galore, and meets characters like Mother Carey, Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby, Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid, and the enchanting girl, Ellie, who eventually becomes his lifetime mate.
Comparisons with Alice in Wonderland and the work of Edward Lear are inevitable. This one is every bit as weird, I am sure, and even the obscure contemporary references are probably worth a Google if you have time. For those in search of something really different, this is highly recommended.
Rating: 8 out of 10.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Falling Man by Don DeLillo
I know he is a stellar name, and I know that I will be in the minority on this one, and I really wanted the first reading experience of this exercise to be a positive one, but I just didn't get it.
Even though the book is comparatively short, I struggled to finish it - three weeks or so since I started, and it is only 246 pages! I really hoped that something centred around the most traumatic even of this young century thus far would stir my emotions. It didn't, except to annoy me that something that sounded so good could be so damned dull.
It is hard to know where to start, but among the problems were the dreary plotlines, uninteresting people, and the rage and frustration I felt the author's apparent reluctance to use proper names - pronouns just about all the way through, so it is near to impossible to know who is talking, who is being talked about, and who is doing what. The chronological jumping around didn't help with the clarity either. I felt rather a dullard not knowing what was going on until I realised that I didn't really care that much. Perhaps the purposeful vagueness had a point, but I must have missed it.
The only characters that were at all interesting were the terrorists, and the glimpses into their minds were profound on occasion. The last chapter, the one which describes the events inside the tower once the planes had hit, was another of the few highlights, and to actually have an interesting chapter as the last one made it doubly pleasurable for me to finish this volume.
My evaluation: 3 out of 10.
Even though the book is comparatively short, I struggled to finish it - three weeks or so since I started, and it is only 246 pages! I really hoped that something centred around the most traumatic even of this young century thus far would stir my emotions. It didn't, except to annoy me that something that sounded so good could be so damned dull.
It is hard to know where to start, but among the problems were the dreary plotlines, uninteresting people, and the rage and frustration I felt the author's apparent reluctance to use proper names - pronouns just about all the way through, so it is near to impossible to know who is talking, who is being talked about, and who is doing what. The chronological jumping around didn't help with the clarity either. I felt rather a dullard not knowing what was going on until I realised that I didn't really care that much. Perhaps the purposeful vagueness had a point, but I must have missed it.
The only characters that were at all interesting were the terrorists, and the glimpses into their minds were profound on occasion. The last chapter, the one which describes the events inside the tower once the planes had hit, was another of the few highlights, and to actually have an interesting chapter as the last one made it doubly pleasurable for me to finish this volume.
My evaluation: 3 out of 10.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The impossible dream
Well, I have done it. Joined the very few who have been game to tell the world of their intention to read as many as possible of the notorious Peter Boxall list, 1001 books you must read before you die.
For a start, I must declare that I do not think that I will ever finish the task. Even without the happy habit of the publishers in updating the canon every couple of years in a way that no one could ever keep up, I doubt that anyone could. And some of the books on the list are either inaccessible (I don't know how anyone could contemplate tackling Peter Manson's Adjunct: an undigest, for example, but I just might) or too heavy a task for all but the most undaunted (Robert Musil's The man without qualities, unfinished at 2 000 pages, and Anthony Powell's A dance to the music of time is in twelve books.)
Some ground rules.
I have been reading for a long time, and know for sure that I have read many on this list, but there are more than likely some on the list that I do not recall reading. I won't count the ones that I have already read, but look forward, maybe, to reading some of them again. Tabula rasa.
I'll post a short review here (and probably on Librarything and elsewhere) of everything that I finish, minimum of 200 words, and will refrain from reviewing everything that I do not. And I won't be skipping or skimming, either, I want to record my honest opinion.
I won't be disheartened or stressed out if a new edition of this book drops something that I have read. I will still feel a sense of accomplishment with the act of reading and reviewing. After all, even if I live for twenty more years, and read and review a book a week, I will barely scrape in 1001 titles, and if Dr Boxall continues to update this volume every couple of years, there could be as many as 2000 titles listed all up. The aim of the game is personal mental growth.
Anyway, tabula rasa. I have some reading to do!
For a start, I must declare that I do not think that I will ever finish the task. Even without the happy habit of the publishers in updating the canon every couple of years in a way that no one could ever keep up, I doubt that anyone could. And some of the books on the list are either inaccessible (I don't know how anyone could contemplate tackling Peter Manson's Adjunct: an undigest, for example, but I just might) or too heavy a task for all but the most undaunted (Robert Musil's The man without qualities, unfinished at 2 000 pages, and Anthony Powell's A dance to the music of time is in twelve books.)
Some ground rules.
I have been reading for a long time, and know for sure that I have read many on this list, but there are more than likely some on the list that I do not recall reading. I won't count the ones that I have already read, but look forward, maybe, to reading some of them again. Tabula rasa.
I'll post a short review here (and probably on Librarything and elsewhere) of everything that I finish, minimum of 200 words, and will refrain from reviewing everything that I do not. And I won't be skipping or skimming, either, I want to record my honest opinion.
I won't be disheartened or stressed out if a new edition of this book drops something that I have read. I will still feel a sense of accomplishment with the act of reading and reviewing. After all, even if I live for twenty more years, and read and review a book a week, I will barely scrape in 1001 titles, and if Dr Boxall continues to update this volume every couple of years, there could be as many as 2000 titles listed all up. The aim of the game is personal mental growth.
Anyway, tabula rasa. I have some reading to do!
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