I haven't read a book I loved this much in a long time. In Hocus Pocus Vonnegut is at his best, walking the line between absurdism, satire, and tragedI haven't read a book I loved this much in a long time. In Hocus Pocus Vonnegut is at his best, walking the line between absurdism, satire, and tragedy with unsurpassed finesse. It's not a story for everyone, because nothing in this story is sacred. (Even the Kennedy assassination isn't off-limits.) The humor is grim, the characters often unpalatable, the outlook bleak. What makes it so compulsively readable is Vonnegut's skill and insight as raconteur. The non-linear narrative seems at first to jump from time to place at random, but in actuality leads the reader in smaller and smaller concentric circles until at last all the questions have been answered, the holes have been filled, the story has been told, and we've arrived back where we started. It's a narrative masterpiece disguised as a mess. But even more compelling is the author's ability to give equal empathy to opposite problems. On one page his narrator may lambaste the catastrophic lunacy of the Vietnam War, and on the next lament the plight of returning soldiers repudiated by their peers, with no less compassion. So maybe nothing is sacred, or maybe everything is. It's a testament to Vonnegut's tremendous talent that that's the question he provokes and leaves unanswered: Is anyone in the right or wrong or are we all just human and therefore, intrinsically, both?...more
At once intimate and epic, this is a book about so much more than baseball. Harbach's prose is elegant, seamless, and disarmingly funny. His characterAt once intimate and epic, this is a book about so much more than baseball. Harbach's prose is elegant, seamless, and disarmingly funny. His characters grow and shrink and buckle up in agony as they struggle against life and death and everything in between. Literature and athletics meld together until a championship baseball game reads like a Greek tragedy. Marvelous. Must read, and read again. ...more
This book reads less like a novel than a memoir. Passionate but repetitive, it struggles along against the lack of plot before finally trying to squasThis book reads less like a novel than a memoir. Passionate but repetitive, it struggles along against the lack of plot before finally trying to squash the whole story into the final two chapters. As much as I admire Lee's wit and verbal dexterity, I struggled with the weak narrative....more
Sleepwalking was not what I expected, but nevertheless impossible to put down. Wolitzer does a remarkable job showing the different forms and functionSleepwalking was not what I expected, but nevertheless impossible to put down. Wolitzer does a remarkable job showing the different forms and functions of grief, and how profoundly the loss of loved ones (literally or metaphorically) can change a person's outlook and approach to life. But she avoids the trap of being sentimental--Sleepwalking tells it like it is, and is all the more poignant for its refusal to slip into melodrama....more
What a terrifically strange book. In many ways it's refreshing to have a campus novel not written about a bunch of adolescent boys, especially becauseWhat a terrifically strange book. In many ways it's refreshing to have a campus novel not written about a bunch of adolescent boys, especially because Jackson shows that growing up is just as--if not exponentially more--difficult for a girl. It's a dark and twisted tale where the reader, like Natalie, is never quite sure what's real. Fascinating stuff, to be sure. The ending is supremely inconclusive, however, provoking me and, by the look of it, many others to take to the Internet, wondering what we missed....more
Disclaimer: I think my initial reading of this was slightly marred by the bizarre Kindle formatting. Lines broke off in the middle of sentences, paragDisclaimer: I think my initial reading of this was slightly marred by the bizarre Kindle formatting. Lines broke off in the middle of sentences, paragraph and chapter breaks were not at all clear, et cetera. So, I think I found it more confusing than it actually is. But to the actual review:
Black Chalk is at once fascinating and frustrating. The premise is at once reminiscent of The Secret History or Gentlemen and Players but the mechanics of the deadly 'game' are never entirely clear. We know there are cards and dice involved and we know the consequences of losing--humiliation that escalates so rapidly as to become life-threatening--but we never learn how the game itself actually works, which seems a significant aspect of the story to omit/overlook. Similarly, the incentive to keep playing (or to start playing in the first place) feels underdeveloped. Money does not seem like it would be a strong enough motivator for these particular people, who spend hours arguing about who is the least privileged and ergo, the most enlightened/deserving/whatever.
What does work is the trap Yates expertly sets for his narrator--and by extension, his reader. The story is misleading from the start, but instead of leaving the reader with a feeling of being duped (the pitfall of many a plot twist), Yates slowly unravels the tapestry he initially presented. By the halfway point, you know better than to believe that anything--or anyone--is what they seem. The gameplayers themselves are a colorful and in some instances, delightful, cast of characters whose personalities blossom and clash when they're all closeted together in Jolyon's room. There are no clear heroes and no clear villains: only six peculiar, entirely plausible people. My only complaint against Yates's characterization has to do with the women. Dee and Emilia are two halves of one Oxfordian Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and they serve little function in the story except to act as prizes awarded or taken away from the men in the group (not unlike Donna Tartt's Camilla in the sausage-fest that is The Secret History--Why is it that women are so grossly under-represented in this sub-genre of academic novels? I don't know).
All in all, Black Chalk is a smart and compelling (if imperfect) read. ...more
This book is miserable. That's honestly the only word I can think of to describe it. It's a marathon of unfortunate things happening to thoroughly unlThis book is miserable. That's honestly the only word I can think of to describe it. It's a marathon of unfortunate things happening to thoroughly unlikable people, with no clear through-line to keep you interested. Objectively, Kirman's prose isn't bad, but that's about all that kept this from being a one-star review.
The inexplicably, pretentiously titled Bradstreet Gate tells the largely plotless story of three Harvard students on the periphery of a murder that takes place on campus. There's Alice--bitter and cynical and manipulative, Georgia--pretty and spoiled and selfish, and Charlie--perpetually dissatisfied and pathetic. The three of them claim to be friends tragically torn asunder, but as there's very little evidence that they ever did anything but argue, it's hard to swallow. Even harder to swallow is the murder itself, for which a satisfactory perpetrator and motive are never provided, despite an epic info-dump in the last twenty pages.
The first half of Kirman's novel is nothing but backstory. Unfortunately, none her three leads are remotely likable, and neither are any of them interesting enough to justify this (likability be damned). Even after the reader has suffered through these three equally tedious childhoods, he is kept at a frustrating distance from the actual events of the story--nearly every scene is told in summary, as a recollection, staggering under the weight of Kirman's need to philosophize about guilt and grief, without ever showing the reader what that actually looks or feels like. A few interesting moments occur in the second half of the book--Storrow's unexpected appearances in India and Washington--but they're not enough to save the narrative....more
Loading...
