Everything else I read in 2010 (books)
Jan. 16th, 2011 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraMy hot water cylinder is currently being fixed after I discovered a leak, no doubt due to the Boxing Day earthquakes. Hence, a sudden hive of industry. Also, I have just realised this misses one book that I wanted to talk a bit more about; once the plumber goes, I shall retrieve it and post another entry.
Malorie Blackman, Boys Don’t Cry. Dante is waiting for his A level results when his ex-girlfriend shows up with a baby, lets him know he’s the father and then goes out to the shops, subsequently phoning him to tell him she can’t cope anymore and he’s now in charge. Adam, Dante’s younger brother, is cheerfully gay despite Dante and their father (their mother is dead) being completely in denial about this, but he’s having problems with headaches and has come to the attention of gay-bullying friends of Dante’s. I enjoyed this, but it crams in one too many issues for the narrative to really breathe (teenage fatherhood, homosexuality, bullying, suicide, family interactions); in particular, Adam’s background head injury seems unnecessary, and it’s bizarre that it apparently takes the hospital two days to look at his admission CT scan.
Christine Chaundler, The Technical Fifth. School girls doing home economics violate school mores by not just sneaking food but having wholescale feasts, due to morally wobbly example of ex-pupils; solid and keen on practical skills, but just not all that exciting.
Gerald Durrell, Rosy is my relative. Previously staid narrator is left an elephant by his uncle, which serves to destabilise his life in new and interesting ways. I’d forgotten this was set in the late 1800s, rather than around the same time as My Family and Other Animals; enjoyable, anyway, although slight, and I am now a bit iffy about the inherent humour of alcoholic elephants.
Chang-Rae Lee, The surrendered. Interesecting narrators and their history, through war (the Korean and, earlier, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria) and peace, with the central character a Korean war orphan who is now an antiques dealer in New York, dying of stomach cancer and determined to find her lost son. This is beautifully written and relentlessly, grindingly depressing. Lee is not satisfied with the usual senseless brutalities of war itself, and so the peacetime sections of the book are also filled with contrived, ironic deaths; to the point where I actually put the book down after one particularly egregious example (not just a human but a dog!) and said “Oh, come on,” loudly to the seatback in front of me. Native Speaker has one such death, but this is crawling with them, and it all feels so unnecessary and, after a few such, deliberately cruel on behalf of the author.
Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days. Cynical freelance journalist attends festival for launch of a John Henry postage stamp, interspersed with multiple attempts to capture the history/myth of the man itself. I liked the start of this, but the book seems to be deliberately lacking in any sense of narrative urgency, and what it does have in terms of plot – a shooting at the ceremony – is just not that interesting. Also, it’s fairly bleak, and I really needed something that wasn’t after The Surrendered; this might have worked better for me if I’d taken a break between them.
Homer, The Iliad. Still brilliant.
Donna Tartt, The Secret History (re-read). This book does so many things so well – giving away a huge plot point in the opening, but then telling the story so convincingly that it still comes as a surprise when it happens (again); the winter Richard spends alone, the best externalisation of depression I’ve ever read; the ending, which still sends chills down my spine. And then I look at my copy of The Little Friend, which I found unreadable (possibly it dramatically improves after 200 pages, but I never got there) and wonder just what happened.
John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids (re-read). I always remember the beginning of this book – the revelation of what’s happened – more than the follow-through, with the attempts to build some new sorts of society. Still good.
Joan Vinge, Psion (re-read). I zoomed through this for a Yuletide beta, and I’d forgotten just how much sex Cat ends up getting in between being beaten up and brooding about his telepathy (also, more cyberpunky than I remembered). I do like this series, but I think Cat is a difficult character to progress with; Dreamfall has a bit too much looking back for me.
Helen Cresswell, Absolute Zero (re-read). My favourite Bagthorpe book, with an obsessively competitive family (apart from Jack, and Zero) discovering organised competitions. Brilliant.
Kristin Cashore, Graceling. Hmm. I thought I wrote this up at the time, but now can’t find it, and it was a borrowed copy. YA fantasy, in a world where those born with mismatched eyes are Graces, blessed – or cursed – with special gifts; the main character, Katsa, has the gift of killing. All I have retained from this is that I liked that the lead realises she does not want to marry or have children, despite the obvious romantic partner, and the villain was interesting, but the conclusion seemed rushed (I wanted more drawn out angst, basically) and the setting – and naming system – did not distinguish themselves.
Honor Arundel, Emma’s Island. Arrgh. I remember even less of this, other than it’s the first in a series, and I think I read one of the latter ones when I was ten or so and was baffled. Good, with a thoughtful consideration of its characters and setting.
Maggie Helwig, Between mountains. A translator working for the war crimes tribunal in the Hague and a journalist living in Bosnia have a low-key, difficult relationship, with the recent Balkan war an inescapable backdrop. Well written, and the translation bits were fascinating; I didn’t get a lot of emotional concern about the relationship, and the narrative doesn’t push forward much, but I enjoyed reading it.
Sarah Kane, Blasted (play). I missed the Silo’s production of this but saw their 4.48 Psychosis; this is a play about violence and guilt and responsibility, and how the eruption of one specific personal crime (rape) into the everyday parallels the sudden outbreak of war across a whole society. I am intrigued by how it would be staged while being unsure if I’d want to watch something so deliberately confrontational, but the way it implicates its characters (and the audience) is extremely effective.
EM Channon, Cinderella Girl. A birthday present from my sister, who knows how much I like The Honour of the House; has a competent heroine who copes despite an unsupportive family and a lack of options, a noble friend, a surprisingly high body count for what I thought was a children’s book, and a description of food poisoning (the nonexistent ptomaine poisoning theory) that quite put me off sausages. This is somewhere in the house and I may well come back to it on a re-read.
Malorie Blackman, Boys Don’t Cry. Dante is waiting for his A level results when his ex-girlfriend shows up with a baby, lets him know he’s the father and then goes out to the shops, subsequently phoning him to tell him she can’t cope anymore and he’s now in charge. Adam, Dante’s younger brother, is cheerfully gay despite Dante and their father (their mother is dead) being completely in denial about this, but he’s having problems with headaches and has come to the attention of gay-bullying friends of Dante’s. I enjoyed this, but it crams in one too many issues for the narrative to really breathe (teenage fatherhood, homosexuality, bullying, suicide, family interactions); in particular, Adam’s background head injury seems unnecessary, and it’s bizarre that it apparently takes the hospital two days to look at his admission CT scan.
Christine Chaundler, The Technical Fifth. School girls doing home economics violate school mores by not just sneaking food but having wholescale feasts, due to morally wobbly example of ex-pupils; solid and keen on practical skills, but just not all that exciting.
Gerald Durrell, Rosy is my relative. Previously staid narrator is left an elephant by his uncle, which serves to destabilise his life in new and interesting ways. I’d forgotten this was set in the late 1800s, rather than around the same time as My Family and Other Animals; enjoyable, anyway, although slight, and I am now a bit iffy about the inherent humour of alcoholic elephants.
Chang-Rae Lee, The surrendered. Interesecting narrators and their history, through war (the Korean and, earlier, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria) and peace, with the central character a Korean war orphan who is now an antiques dealer in New York, dying of stomach cancer and determined to find her lost son. This is beautifully written and relentlessly, grindingly depressing. Lee is not satisfied with the usual senseless brutalities of war itself, and so the peacetime sections of the book are also filled with contrived, ironic deaths; to the point where I actually put the book down after one particularly egregious example (not just a human but a dog!) and said “Oh, come on,” loudly to the seatback in front of me. Native Speaker has one such death, but this is crawling with them, and it all feels so unnecessary and, after a few such, deliberately cruel on behalf of the author.
Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days. Cynical freelance journalist attends festival for launch of a John Henry postage stamp, interspersed with multiple attempts to capture the history/myth of the man itself. I liked the start of this, but the book seems to be deliberately lacking in any sense of narrative urgency, and what it does have in terms of plot – a shooting at the ceremony – is just not that interesting. Also, it’s fairly bleak, and I really needed something that wasn’t after The Surrendered; this might have worked better for me if I’d taken a break between them.
Homer, The Iliad. Still brilliant.
Donna Tartt, The Secret History (re-read). This book does so many things so well – giving away a huge plot point in the opening, but then telling the story so convincingly that it still comes as a surprise when it happens (again); the winter Richard spends alone, the best externalisation of depression I’ve ever read; the ending, which still sends chills down my spine. And then I look at my copy of The Little Friend, which I found unreadable (possibly it dramatically improves after 200 pages, but I never got there) and wonder just what happened.
John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids (re-read). I always remember the beginning of this book – the revelation of what’s happened – more than the follow-through, with the attempts to build some new sorts of society. Still good.
Joan Vinge, Psion (re-read). I zoomed through this for a Yuletide beta, and I’d forgotten just how much sex Cat ends up getting in between being beaten up and brooding about his telepathy (also, more cyberpunky than I remembered). I do like this series, but I think Cat is a difficult character to progress with; Dreamfall has a bit too much looking back for me.
Helen Cresswell, Absolute Zero (re-read). My favourite Bagthorpe book, with an obsessively competitive family (apart from Jack, and Zero) discovering organised competitions. Brilliant.
Kristin Cashore, Graceling. Hmm. I thought I wrote this up at the time, but now can’t find it, and it was a borrowed copy. YA fantasy, in a world where those born with mismatched eyes are Graces, blessed – or cursed – with special gifts; the main character, Katsa, has the gift of killing. All I have retained from this is that I liked that the lead realises she does not want to marry or have children, despite the obvious romantic partner, and the villain was interesting, but the conclusion seemed rushed (I wanted more drawn out angst, basically) and the setting – and naming system – did not distinguish themselves.
Honor Arundel, Emma’s Island. Arrgh. I remember even less of this, other than it’s the first in a series, and I think I read one of the latter ones when I was ten or so and was baffled. Good, with a thoughtful consideration of its characters and setting.
Maggie Helwig, Between mountains. A translator working for the war crimes tribunal in the Hague and a journalist living in Bosnia have a low-key, difficult relationship, with the recent Balkan war an inescapable backdrop. Well written, and the translation bits were fascinating; I didn’t get a lot of emotional concern about the relationship, and the narrative doesn’t push forward much, but I enjoyed reading it.
Sarah Kane, Blasted (play). I missed the Silo’s production of this but saw their 4.48 Psychosis; this is a play about violence and guilt and responsibility, and how the eruption of one specific personal crime (rape) into the everyday parallels the sudden outbreak of war across a whole society. I am intrigued by how it would be staged while being unsure if I’d want to watch something so deliberately confrontational, but the way it implicates its characters (and the audience) is extremely effective.
EM Channon, Cinderella Girl. A birthday present from my sister, who knows how much I like The Honour of the House; has a competent heroine who copes despite an unsupportive family and a lack of options, a noble friend, a surprisingly high body count for what I thought was a children’s book, and a description of food poisoning (the nonexistent ptomaine poisoning theory) that quite put me off sausages. This is somewhere in the house and I may well come back to it on a re-read.
