December 2010
20 posts
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Housekeeping
Marilynne’s Robinson’s Housekeeping is an unpredictable novel. For some reason, I had Anne of Green Gables in mind when I read the back cover, and I anticipated a warm-hearted orphan adoption story. That’s not what Housekeeping is.
The story is the opposite of the title. Ruthie and Lucille (sisters) know nothing of a consistent homelife. They only know that they can count on...
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“It seemed to me that I made no impact on the world, and that in exchange I was...”
– Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
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The Future of Reading - LA TIMES →
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“The day after Sylvie arrived, Lucille and I woke up early. It was our custom to...”
– Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
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THE TIME OF THE HERO
I just finished Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Time of the Hero, which I became more engrossed in as I progressed through it. I found that his prose, the plot, the characters, and the themes were really compelling and powerful. If I didn’t have a million errands and things to do I wouldn’t have been able to put it down.
I’d never read anything by Llosa before, so I was very...
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Hiroshima in the Morning
I finished Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s Hiroshima in the Morning yeterday evening. This memoir was so deeply personal, it felt like I was reading her diary. Rahna was writing about her past, but I felt as though her experiences were very vivid to her. She wrote about her life thoughtfully, analytically, and emotionally.
The most striking and vivid part of this memoir, however, might not have...
Writers talk about Editors →
“At any rate, Updike gave it his all and is dead now, so he was right enough at the time.”
Paul Harding's (TINKERS) Year in Reading →
“Both are small masterpieces of great aesthetic and cosmological elegance, told in deceptively anecdotal styles. Both are episodic and both wear their sophistication lightly.”
Margaret Atwood's Year in Reading →
“No: best to avoid living authors. The others hear about it and think you don’t like them. So my choice is Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, the urspring of the modern thriller.”
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2010- IN READING →
This THE MILLIONS series is quite wonderful.
“There are many ways to measure a year, but the reader is likely to measure it in books.”
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“Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we...”
– Tinkers, Paul Harding
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TINKERS
What can I say about Tinkers, by Paul Harding, that others more eloquent than I haven’t already said? I thought Tinkers was ethereally beautiful. The prose poetic, the diction, tone, and mood perfect. Finishing Tinkers ruined my day, because that meant it was over.
George’s and Howard’s lives are crocheted into a narrative that at once feels like it could be blown apart...
Murakami on Fiction →
Books of the Year →
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RULE OF THE BONE, Russell Banks
I just finished Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks. This book was well-paced, original, and touching.
Many of the reviews of this book praise its “coming of age” nature, comparing it to Catcher in the Rye. While I think this comparison is apt at times, I thought the plot and rising action of the story was much more interesting than Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. Banks was able...