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May. 11th, 2007 @ 04:45 pm (no subject)
I'm reading more slowly right now due to socializing and a lot of emotional distress. Still, slow and steady, right? The Master and Margarita was pretty damn good; certainly I enjoyed reading it. Any book that has the devil as a main character is going to be enjoyable, and the comic parts with Korovyov and Behemoth were zany and entertaining. My favorite part was realizing (thanks in part to the translator's notes) that a certain seemingly-innocuous chapter about people disappearing due to witchcraft was actually about people disappearing due to the Soviet secret police in the era Bulgakov is writing about. The feel of the chapter goes from comic to tragic pretty suddenly, at that point.

Finished Reading: Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Date Finished: 9 May
Currently Reading: Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum
Date Started: 10 May
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May. 4th, 2007 @ 02:42 pm (no subject)
Well, the book I just read is really three books in one, three collections of Garcia Marquez's short stories. Honestly, I didn't like the first one so much - only one story or maybe two in it that I really enjoyed. The second one was much better. The stories weren't in Garcia Marquez's usual style, but still the craftsmanship was there. They were really well-written, especially the eponymous last one. The last collection, The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendia and Her Heartless Grandmother, was fantastic. Those were some of the best short stories I've read in a long time. Beautiful magic realism, beautiful writing, beautiful stories.

Note to self: villages float in the heat, alcohol swims in your eyes. And I really wish I'd written A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.

Finished Reading: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Complete Short Stories
Date Finished: 2 May
Currently Reading: Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Date Started: 3 May
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Apr. 24th, 2007 @ 05:38 pm (no subject)
I continue to slack like a beast, reading far too slowly. Ah well, progress is progress, and the list of magic realist books is drawing to a close. Too bad that several of those which remain are six-to-seven-hundred page monstrosities. I am going to read The Tin Drum, no matter how daunting it looks.

Also, I was thinking recently that I should shut the hell up and stop telling people all my good ideas. The line of reasoning, which came upon me quite suddenly, as if from without, ran like this: If a person wants something, they should strive, not to acquire it, but to deserve it. I ask myself, what kinds of people are they that deserve to write and be read? Answer - those people who have something valuable to say. But then, doesn't it seem strange to say, "I have something to say" if you've already said it? Doesn't "having something to say" imply that whatever insight you've got has yet to be articulated? So maybe, I should shut my mouth, and keep my ideas for my books.

Or maybe that's complete nonsense. Well, it was just a thought. A little less talking would satisfy my inner Buddhist anyway.

Finished Reading: Italo Calvino, If On A Winters Night A Traveler
Date Finished: 23 April

Currently Reading: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Complete Short Stories
Date Started: 24 April
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Apr. 16th, 2007 @ 03:26 am (no subject)
I feel like a slacker. This Ben Okri book, The Famished Road, has taken me a solid eight days to read. It wasn't all that easy to get through, and in fact the first 350 pages were a little bit of a letdown, but the last 150 pages were just amazing. Beautiful magic realism. It's like he kicked the prose style into high gear all at once. The parable of the eternal road and the fight against Green Leopard were both spectacularly written. He even managed to finally get me caring about his characters, having a little sympathy for them. Best quote of the novel:

We are the miracles God created to taste the bitter fruits of time. We are precious, and one day our suffering will turn into the wonders of the earth.

Finished Reading: Ben Okri, The Famished Road
Date Finished: 16 April

Currently Reading: Italo Calvino, If On A Winter's Night A Traveler
Date Started: 16 April
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Apr. 8th, 2007 @ 07:50 am (no subject)
I really like Isabel Allende. I'm all sad now because it's time to move on.

Finished Reading: Isabel Allende, The Stories of Eva Luna
Date Finished: 5 April

Currently Reading: Ben Okri, The Famished Road
Date Started: 8 April
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Apr. 1st, 2007 @ 09:53 pm (no subject)
I don't know why, but I had a lot more trouble getting through One Hundred Years of Solitude than I did The House Of Spirits. That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it; there were some really hilarious, laugh-out-loud moments in there that nonetheless left me feeling a little lonely and melancholy. I mean, it's brilliantly written. It's just so very non-linear and repetitive (deliberately, I know) and so full of characters with the same names (deliberate device, I know) that it's hard to remember what's happening, what I just read, where I am in the narrative, etc. Of course, questions about time and memory resound throughout the book, so it's evident that the confusion I felt is intended...

Also, I believe that makes the ninth book that I've read in the past month. Maybe I should take a break, or at least slow down?


Finished Reading: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Date Finished: 1 April

Currently Reading: Isabel Allende, The Stories of Eva Luna
Date Started: 2 April
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Mar. 27th, 2007 @ 12:44 pm (no subject)
Wow. The House of Spirits was really astounding, enjoyable beyond belief, and marvellously well-written. It has to be the most canonical example of magic realism I've read since The Satanic Verses, although it lacks the almost dizzying intricacy of that book. I'm adding The Stories of Eva Luna to my reading list to see what Isabel Allende can do with short stories, and have high hopes.

Finished Reading: Isabel Allende, The House of Spirits
Date Finished: 27 March

Currently Reading: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Date Started: 27 March
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Mar. 23rd, 2007 @ 02:51 pm (no subject)
I love Borges for the rich language, but I respect him for the research and scholarship he puts into his work. He was curator of the Argentinian National Library for years, you know?

Also, my books finally came in the mail. On to Isabel Allende!

EDIT: I'm on page 31 of this book, The House Of Spirits, and it's so awesome I could dance for joy. Little girls with psychic powers? Impossibly beautiful women with blue skin and green hair? A madman explorer with incredible luck and a phantasmagoria in his suitcases? A puppy of unknown origins who grows to be the size of a large horse? Inquisition priests? Mysterious poisoners? Sweltering jungles? This is the magic realism I've been looking for.

Finished Reading: Jorge Luis Borges, The Book Of Imaginary Beings
Date Finished: 20 March

Currently Reading: Isabel Allende, The House Of Spirits
Date Started: 23 March
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Mar. 18th, 2007 @ 08:32 pm (no subject)
If anyone ever wants to understand, or at least begin to understand, the part of me that stands motionless and quiet, for timeless time, staring at the sea; if anyone should want to understand the part of me that loves stillness and solitude and the countryside, loves places without words, without needs; if anyone, driven by curiosity, wants to know what reasons there are for loving the immortal wind - if anyone wants to know about these things, perhaps they would enjoy reading Siddhartha.

Finished Reading: Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Date Finished: 18 March

Currently Reading: Jorge Luis Borges, The Book Of Imaginary Beings
Date Started: 18 March
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Mar. 17th, 2007 @ 02:33 pm (no subject)
Neil Gaiman, he never disappoints. What I really like about him is his proficiency with stories of all different lengths. He's got one story in Fragile Things that's only 950 words long (I counted) and yet is wonderfully complete, spooky, and satisfying; on the other hand, the novella that wraps up the book is just as captivating and seems to go by quick as can be. I also love his willingness, neither shy nor pretentious, to include his poems. I can't wait to re-read Smoke and Mirrors!

Finished Reading: Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things
Date Finished: 17 March

Currently Reading: Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Date Started: 17 March
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