And Sometimes They Were Very Sad

59. The Marriage Plot

This book was a gut punch for me to read.  It wouldn’t be for other people, but for me it was painful for reasons I won’t write about here.  It made me very sad, but I also read it differently than anyone else would and so I think all of my opinions are going to be skewed.

I identified with Madeline, maybe too much.  I also have spent much of my life escaping into stories and have so many plots and characters floating around in my mind that my realities can never live up to my expectations.  I identified with all three characters as they fell in to the chasm of the “Real World.”  We hear about it during our education, everyone around us pretends that we have done everything right to be prepared for its realities.  We go to school and study in order to Be something.  We believe that we have a handle on who we want to be for the rest of our lives, but truthfully we know nothing.  We have simply been hiding, avoiding.

The book is wonderfully written, Eugenides plays with time in a wonderful way.  His writing shows how two people can share an experience but feel and remember it in excruciatingly different ways.  He highlights again how insecure people truly are with themselves and how the people around them know very little of the truth.  He brings each of the characters to life in a very vivid, though not always happy, way.  I am sure there will be many complaints about the entitled nature of the advantaged youth of the 1980’s.

I keep seeing the story labeled as a love triangle but I didn’t see it that way; it is more about choices.  We all make choices, big and small, every day.  We also constantly wonder what the other choice would have brought us, often believing that the better choice was the other option.  I am so glad that Mitchell gave Madeline a choice, for his sake as much as for hers.

Left Cold

58. The Skating Rink

 

I found myself a little bored and less absorbed than I usually am with Bolano’s books, so I would say that this is my least favorite. Also, I have to say it was a lot less exciting than the blurb on the back made it sound; I mean, "hair raising"? Not at all!

Since he died, they are printing all of his stuff whether finished or not and I think he might be a bit horrified by that fact as it smacks quite a bit of money grubbing.  The fact that I thought about that while reading this is also an indication of my lack of interest in the story.

The story is told from three male points of view, they are only linked by off chance meetings but they all know details about the skater, the rink that was built, and the murder that occurred there. I liked all three guys even though one is a corrupt politician, he is clearly a romantic; and another has left his wife and son even though he clearly loves them dearly. Not sure I liked them as I read, but looking back I do. Also, any mention of a band of poets from Chile makes me instantly smile, as if I am in on Bolano’s joke. Each of the chapters reads like an interrogation report of what happened, as if they are making sure to highlight the best of their actions.  You have to read this in a pretty steady fashion in order to stay on top of who is who.

Again, all of Bolano’s female characters are adored as opposed to being real characters; men are willing to do anything for them but we are never quite sure why. This is a complaint that I have with all of Bolano’s works, the women are just never developed and I had hoped that since one of the main characters in this book is a woman we might finally see that side of his writing, alas…

Vivid in Black and White

57. The Night Circus

 

The circus appears and disappears as if by magic, and the whole thing is magical.  The descriptions of the circus are quite amazing.  I wanted to be there, to wander the tents, and stand in front of the clock (I LOVED the clock!).  To eat the food, all the food!  It is a place that can only exist in the pages of a book, and I hope it remains safely there.  Although I think the movie rights are already sold, ugh.

There are many characters, too many for the author to handle them all well, and they are all more than meets the eye, and that is one of the aspects I loved most about the book.  It highlights the idea that we humans love to be cynical about things instead of believing in the possibility.  The circus is wonderful and yet it is believable because people don’t question it.

But the circus is also an arena for a duel.  A duel between two magicians selected, groomed, and educated solely to compete.  And this is where the plot lost me.  I don’t know why they were selected, what the duel is really about, or even how it is played.  The two characters dueling, Marco and Celia, are the most flat characters in the book and I had zero investment in their love or their fight.  Oddly, I still don’t understand the outcome of the duel, how it happened or why.  This is a problem.

So the circus totally works, but the dueling totally does not, leaving me to say that this is a fun, quick, beach-y read; but I think in the end this amazing circus will become forgettable and that is too bad.

Ah, The Fly in the Ointment

I knew nothing technical could be as seamless and easy as I would hope.  Although, I guess that isn’t really my complaint here.  Kindle books from the library are as easy to download and read as I said, but I just discovered that a few days before your book expires you get an email from Amazon reminding you how easy it would be to buy the book from them. 

That’s right… A crummy commercial.

True Love

I love the library.

I love the smell.  I love the endless shelves.  I love wandering and finding a treasure.  I love the big comfy chairs.  I love that there is a kid’s section.  I love that the last time my dad went to the library he took out his wallet to pay.

Books for free are magic to me.  They give anyone willing to read the opportunity to learn about anything that interests them.  Continuing Education at your fingertips for FREE!

As a kid, I remember walking up the glassed in ramp of the Boulder Public Library, my heart rate rising from both my speed and my excitement.  I wanted to stop and look at the artwork that lined the walls but I was too excited to get to the books.  Many were favorites and many were brand new.  There were beanbags to sit on and librarians to help.  But in the end it was up to me to decide how I would spend my time, what books I would choose to take home.  I checked them out with my own card.  Really it was my first foray into the adult world, as it was also up to me to treat the books well and get them back on time so that I could go through the experience all again. My first taste of freedom and responsibility; power.  The library has since been remodeled but I will always remember it this way.

Library for Kindle

I own the first generation Kindle, in all its quirky wonder, and it became my most prized possession when I was breastfeeding Darren.  One of the many things I didn’t know about breastfeeding was that it usually leads directly to nap time and it is very hard to turn pages in a book with a sleeping baby in your arms.  So my Kindle and I were connected and it was invaluable to me to be able to escape in to a book during that time.  But since I haven’t even picked the thing up.  I guess I just like regular books better, and quite frankly I want Darren to see me reading books not machines.

I discovered that my library is now lending books for the Kindle and I thought I would check it out just to see how it worked, and I have to say it works incredibly well!  I think a lot of things with technology are needlessly invasive.  You have to provide email and credit card numbers to do just about anything anymore and so I had my doubts, but this was a very simple thing.  No different than putting a book on hold, except that instead of an email saying your book is ready to be picked up you get an email saying it is ready for download: you click the button, sync your device, and voilá!  I know I won’t limit myself to this service because I love actually going to the library, but I have to say that I think I will use it frequently because of the ease.

Hence the Title

56. Child 44

I have been known to declare, “Hence the title!” while watching TV shows and movies.  I learned it from my brother, and I do it without even thinking. Sometimes the reason is obvious and sometimes more obscure; sometimes it is inappropriate.  The Hence the Title moment in Child 44 is rather shocking and made me sit up and exclaim it out loud.  In fact, there were quite a few moments like this and that is why I will say it is truly the most intense and fast paced thriller I have read in some time.  It isn’t a perfect book, but it is certainly an entertaining one.

The set up of the story and atmosphere were really great. A former MGB agent, in post WWII Russia, finds himself on the wrong side of the agency he works for and his life falls apart rather quickly. The stress of knowing that no matter what you do someone can interpret it as a crime is terrifying, and you feel the fear as you read about it all happening to him.

He is sent on an errand to remind a family that the death of their son was an accident and not a murder, as they think, because such things do not happen in their perfect society.  He soon realizes that this was not first murder and decides that someone needs to stop them from happening. The murders are horrible and graphic, and I only learned after reading that they are based on a real case.

The second half of the book felt a bit rushed with some decidedly far-fetched antics. That, and the sappy sweet ending, took a bit of the-thrill-of-it-all out for me, but overall I enjoyed it for what it is. I had zero expectations going in and was pleasantly surprised.

Money, Money, Money

55. Name of The Wind

You know when you read a book and you think: Man, I wish I had done that!  Well, clearly Patrick Rothfuss has done it too.  He read The Lord of the Rings, The Narnia books, and other “Geeky” things (he calls himself a geek, not me – especially since being a geek is the new cool kid thing to do.)  Then he spent seven-some odd years writing this book and what ever is to come next since I wouldn’t even call this a first book in a trilogy as much a first half of a book that is being published as a trilogy, or series, because that is what we do now.  It is worse than a cliffhanger ending; it is like pages fell out.

All of it just felt like it was trying to be something instead of organically becoming something new.  I felt like he needed to stretch a bit more, show a bit more, work a bit more.  Basically write more.  But not print every word he wrote!

The thing that really got on my nerves was how often he brought up money.  The author created his own currency system (good on oh-so-creative you!) and brought up, over and over again, how the narrator got, spent, and was constantly in need of more money.  The problem with that is that it is a story, so while you can say someone is poor you can’t constantly dwell on it because it doesn’t really matter – it is all fake!  And dwelling on it takes me out of the story; because really, is he going to get kicked out of the pretend school because he doesn’t have enough pretend money to pay for it?  No, because there are 400 more pages and, since this is all told as a flash back, you already told us he went to school!  Clearly, it got to the point that I couldn’t think about anything else.

Anyway, there were parts of the story that were intriguing but I don’t think I care enough about them to continue on to the other books.