February's Pick

February's selection is The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht. Not only was it the winner of the Orange Prize in 2011, it is a contender for the coveted Tournament of Books. Obreht's novel is a story of "family legend, loss, and love":

"In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself."

(read more at Powell's Books)

This should be an interesting read, and not too long, which is good, because I am aiming to read the majority of the books in this year's tournament (sorry 1Q84, you won't make the cut!). So far I have read 6 of the sixteen books in contention - The Tiger's Wife will be the seventh, and I am on schedule to read 4-5 more, bringing my total to 12 of the 16, which isn't bad at all. Read along with me if you dare! But definitely read The Tiger's Wife. Look for a post at the end of the month with my review.

Review - The Marriage Plot

It's the end of the month and so time for my review of this month's pick, The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.

For me, this book was all about the title. Immediately, Eugenides was comparing his story to the traditional idea of the marriage plot novels of the 19th century. It was even more interesting when you consider that his characters were conscious of this comparison - each of the three had high expectations when it came to romantic relationships. The story really came together for me in the last third of the novel, when all three characters finally broke away from preconceived notions of what their lives should be and went with what their lives actually are, accepting themselves and their loved ones in the process. It was a gradual acceptance and Eugenides unveils this change in a subtle way.

The main critical point of this novel, I think, is the Leonard Bankhead character. Though Eugenides insists that it is not based on David Foster Wallace, the bandana-wearing, tobacco-chewing, manic depressive Bankhead seems to be similar in a number of key areas.Zsuzsi Gartner's review in The Globe & Mail expounds on this further:

"In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Eugenides rather disingenuously denied the character was inspired by or even bore a resemblance to Wallace. If it’s a homage, why deny it? And if not, what is he playing at here? Is he making a meta-fictional point while pretending not to by writing a main character who so eerily resembles in almost every way one of the leading postmodernist writers of the 20th and 21st century? I find this disturbing." 

The middle section of the novel goes into manic depression in extreme detail, both on the effects of the sufferer and of those around him. It is a key piece of the novel, and I feel that Eugenides does it justice without being exploitative or sensational, deliberate Wallace comparison notwithstanding. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It wasn't groundbreaking, it wasn't shocking, but it was a great read by a great writer. I found the three main characters - Madeleine, Leonard and Mitchell - to be realistic in their faults as well as their qualities, without being cynical or tragic. (It seems to be a misconception that "realistic" characters must also be jaded and bitter - i.e. Jonathan Franzen). Eugenides's connection to 19th century writers such as Henry James or George Eliot is clear, and he adds to the tradition of the marriage plot, updating it for the 20th century. I agree with Gartner that "The Marriage Plot can be read innocently enough as a modern romance about books and love and goodness, or as something tricksier, depending on what you bring to the text from outside." 

Please add your own review to the comments section - I would love to hear what you think!

Tonight we're gonna party like it's 2012

In January, I am going to read The Marriage Plot by Jeffery Eugenides. Already a NY Times Bestseller and on many top lists of 2011, it promises to be an entertaining read. This is his first novel since the Pulitzer Prize-winning Middlesex in 2002, and revolves around a love triangle at a college campus in New England. Make this your holiday read of 2011 and share your thoughts in the new year!

July Book Club Pick

This July, I am traveling at the end of the month, but that doesn't mean that I can't read a book! I've decided to honour 2011 Man Booker International Prize winner Philip Roth by selecting 1979's The Ghost Writer. First volume of a trilogy, The Ghost Writer focuses on Nathan Zuckerman, "a budding writer infatuated with the Great Books". Roth explores "the tensions between literature and life, artistic truthfulness and conventional decency". Can't wait!

June Pick - The Eyre Affair

The Erye Affair is a refreshing read, clever in its premise and well done to be pulled off at all. Fforde immediately demands that you suspend your disbelief by informing the reader that the Crimean War (1853-1856) was actually still ongoing, as the Treaty of Paris was never signed. And so the reader immediate realizes that British history needs a quick review (thank you Wikipedia). We follow heroine Thursday Next in her pursuit of literary criminals, in her profession as literary detective (“LiteraTecs”), investigating crimes against literature: “It’s way less flash than it sounds... It was under Boswell that we arrested the gang who were stealing and selling Samuel Johnson first editions; on another occasion we uncovered an attempt to authenticate a flagrantly unrealistic version of Shakespeare’s Cardenio. Fun while it lasted, but only small islands of excitement among the ocean of day-to-day mundanities that is SO-27: we spent most of our time dealing with illegal traders, copyright infringements and fraud”

Fforde’s London is a literary society, with classic literature and its authors holding high value in all parts of society. Thursday Next deals with the criminal element, and she meets an arch-villain appropriately named Acheron Hades (his brother’s name is, you guessed it, Styx). Hades is a worthy foe, and the two meet numerous times as she seeks to foil his plots to subvert society by abducting first editions and altering key events in literature. And he does it all for fun. The Eyre affair refers to one such attempt to alter literature, and Fforde deftly navigates the complicated details of the world he created in order to pull it off.

The Eyre Affair is an amusing and satisfying read, and is perfect for summer. You can escape into literature while Thursday may or may not be literally doing the same thing. Five stars!

Still Reading!

I've finished A Storm of Swords, and have started A Feast for Crows. Storm is utterly heartbreaking at times, and I am yanked back to reality when Martin exhibits his superior storytelling skills by making it all so real, even though we're talking about dragons, wights, direwolves and giants. Brilliant. I can only hope A Feast for Crows lives up to its predecessors.

A fellow fan of the series recommended that I wait until shortly before the fifth book is released before I read the fourth book, as the timelines occur simultaneously, so I am putting AFfC on hiatus and jumping to The Eyre Affair, which I am loving. It is a marriage between Douglas Adams and Harold Bloom, so far. More to report once Fforde is ffinished.

A Song of Ice and Fire

I’m 50% through the (soon to be) five part series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, having finished A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. I have started A Storm of Swords, and I am not expecting any diminish in quality - the first 150 pages are proving me right so far.

A Game of Thrones is a compelling read, focusing on several characters at once in an overall cast of hundreds, really. Martin is an accomplished storyteller, revealing just enough about the character and plot to build continuously on the already intense storyline. The saga starts with tense relations between the King of Westeros, Robert Barathon, and his Queen’s family, the Lannisters. The King has selected Eddard Stark to be the Hand of the King, his right-hand man, to have someone at court that he can trust. But Stark soon finds that he is in over his head, and duty and honour have no place at the seat of the Seven Kingdoms.

Martin focuses the story on House Stark for the most part: Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, his wife Catelyn, sons Robb, Bran, and, to a lesser extent, Rickard, daughters Sansa and Arya and bastard son Jon Snow, for whom life does not get easier from an already tumultuous upbringing. The trend continues in A Clash of Kings, and although one reviewer called the storylines “somewhat predictable,” it seems that she has not yet read A Clash of Kings, as Martin adds greatly to the one or two massive plot twists in A Game of Thrones in A Clash of Kings: by the middle of the book, I had no idea what to expect, as anything, Martin threatened, could happen. A Storm of Swords promises to be equally unsettling.

The series is getting much ballyhoo as it is the next hot new show on cable, having completed 7 episodes on HBO. The series, simply called Game of Thrones, has a star-studded cast and is reportedly both well-done and true to the book. They have already started casting for the second season, and with the fifth book due out July 12th, they seem to have a lucrative series run on their hands.

Read another review at Magnificent Octopus, and another at The Millions.

Slave Lake Public Library Not a Lost Cause!

In the spirit of global community, there’s hardly a person that will say that this is a bad idea: Slave Lake Book Auction. P.E.I. poet Colleen McKie is raising money for the ravaged Slave Lake Public Library, which lost all of its 26,000 holdings.

And, from the Quill & Quire blog:

If you’re interested in helping out but aren’t sure how, the Peace Library System is taking donations of new or nearly new books (no more than two years old). Books can be shipped
prepaid to:

Peace Library System
8301 — 110 Street
Grande Prairie, AB T8W 6T2
ATTN: Books for Slave Lake Library

Also, check out the Slave Lake Library webpage, which offers other ways to donate. Help in any way you can!

New Book Club Pick!

The Book Club pick for June 2011, celebrating 3 years of book clubbing, will be a “bookish” book, The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde:

"The novel is set in a very different reality, where literature is a very serious matter. Thursday Next is a Special Operative, who investigates literary fraud and forgeries. She's called in when a rare Dickens manuscript disappears without a trace. Then, she finds herself caught up in a literary detective tale, where she must unravel the puzzle of literary time travel and the re-writing of the the most famous endings." (thanks About.com)

Read more here. 

Perhaps my wife will even respond, as she has read this book and I know for a fact that she enjoyed it.

Blogging Theory: How Much is Too Much?

Over the last several weeks, The Reading Ape has opined about the nature of book blogging, and what the goal of the book blogger is, or should be. A very interesting thread of discussion, and leaves much up for discussion. Read the initial post here, and read follow up posts and comments here. Perhaps I will weigh in on these thoughts, but I am not sure yet. I am still processing. Part of me wants to speak my piece and defend my reasons for book blogging (or not doing so, as the case may be), but part of me just wants to go with the flow, not engaging too much with the disparate opinions of the many, many book bloggers out there. We shall see.