Tag Archives: long

06.30.14
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The Luminaries

Page turner: 7/10
Heart tugger: 4/10
Thought provoker: 6/10
Overall: 3 stars

The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton, gets off to a pretty strong start. It has quite a gripping middle. But I was massively underwhelmed by the ending.

The trouble I had, I suspect, is in it’s re-readability. In my ignorance, this wasn’t really a category I had considered before, but I have learned (courtesy of my friend, Dan – fount of all knowledge) how critical it is in an award-winning book. And all the moreso here. Let me explain:

I read The Luminaries once, and mostly, I read it for the plot. It is (seemingly) a murder-mystery set during the New Zealand gold rush. It features a whore and a missing person and at least one ghost. So pretty action packed, and full of twists and turns. All along the reader notes that the chapters open with signs of the zodiac, and there are some overtures to other astrological symbolism. But, frankly, I pretty much ignored it. A bit too airy fairy for me. Besides, there was just too much going on! There are well over a dozen ‘main’ characters in the book.

The trouble is, the ending really quite clearly ISN’T about the plot. It’s a pretty big anticlimax. It is MUCH more about the astrology, and the paths the characters lives take. So I was massively disappointed. But upon reflection, if I read the book again and had the time/patience/inclination to take more note of the star signs throughout, I think it would be a much subtler, cleverer book. And, returning to my original point, a book only wins an award after the people reading it have read it a good many times. I suppose it makes sense that the panels of people giving the prize have to read and re-read countless books in order to give them all a ‘fair’ comparison. I suppose.

Whilst I can understand that a Great book could/should have multiple layers, I think that only really being ABLE to access them through multiple reads feels a bit inappropriate. I mean, I loved watching the Sixth Sense, and watching it a second time was pretty awesome, but I didn’t NEED to do so in order to get a lot of out of it. Also, the Sixth Sense’s running time is 107 minutes and the Luminaries weighs in at an incredibly hefty 832 pages. The prospect of reading it again makes my shoulder hurt.

All that said, it is a good book. And shout out to the only-28-year-old Ms. Catton. What a hugely impressive accomplishment pre-30. The very nice thing is that if The Luminaries is any indication of future work, I look forward to reading more by her again in the future!

06.08.14
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The Orphan Master’s Son

Pager turner: 7/10
Heart tugger: 7/10
Thought-provoker: 9/10
Overall: 4 stars

The Orphan Master’s Son is about North Korea. And it is brilliant.

What is so powerful about it is that it brings to mind other dystopian novels like Brave New World and 1984, only The Orphan Master’s Son is (essentially) real. Or based in a real place, where unspeakable things happen. Perhaps I should caveat that to say that of course unspeakable things happen everywhere in the world, but the particular ones that Adam Johnson narrates in TOMS were beyond anything that my little Western mind had ever even considered within the bounds of modern reality. Shows what I know.

The book is in two parts – the first tells the story of the protagonist Pak Jun Do’s young-young adult life and the second is the story of Commander Ga. It is difficult to explain how the two relate without giving the essential narrative ploy of the book away (have you seen ‘The Sixth Sense’?) but Johnson’s story-telling technique in breaking up the book this way is elegant, simple and very effective.

Pak Jun Do grew up in an orphanage, and being an orphan is apparently the worst thing to be in North Korea. Though never overtly explained, the implication is that if you have no parents to protect you, you are at the whim of the State to make use of you as it sees fit. So the first half of the book is really a series of horrible, entertaining, mind-boggling misadventures. Tunnelling, pain training, starvation, kidnapping, sailing, shark attacks and (of course) American Sneak Attacks! are all present. It starts a bit slowly but, given all that action, it is safe to say that it builds and becomes engrossing.

The best way to summarise the second half of the book is to say that Commader Ga’s world is a world-turned-upside-down. Imagine putting your whole reality under a microscope and questioning every-single-tiny assumption. It’s like that. It’s scary (but not hide in the corner scary – it’s blow-your-mind scary).

Throughout the book Johnson tells the story of the Orphan Master’s Son through a few different voices, including that of the omnipresent loudspeakers blasting ‘news’ to North Korean citizens. The technique works to force you to consider the different perspectives in the book, but there are a few chapters/characters that I think have more limited success simply when juxtaposed with the Greatness of the others. Similarly, I couldn’t wait to find out what happens and to explore the other-worldliness of North Korea, but the book is 575 pages long. I noticed.

For such an undertaking, I can totally see why Johnson won the 2013 Pulitzer for The Orphan Master’s Son. It’s astonishing – both in the setting/story and the way he manages to tell it. I heartily recommend.

10.23.13
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Midnight’s Children

Page turner: 2/10
Heart tugger: 4/10
Thought provoker: 8/10
Overall: 2 stars

My copy of Midnight’s Children is 647 pages long.  I know this, not because I finished reading the book only a few minutes ago, but because I have checked how many pages I have to go probably about 447 times (I didn’t check the first 100 – that’d be rude, and I could do the math quite easily the last 100).  This book was long. And it was a chore.

Now before I rant overly much about the hard-slog-reading-that-is-the-first-two-thirds-of-this-book I would like to conduct a bit of a thought experiment that I learned whilst reading Daniel Kahneman’s book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’. I think (hope?) Salman Rushdie would approve. The true experiment isn’t exactly possible, but hopefully you’ll get the idea. I am going to describe this book in 6 words. First, three positive words. Then, three negative words. Then I’ll do it the other way ’round. Using the same six words. Bear with.

Positive: magical, intelligent, organic
Negative: dense, meandering, self-important

Now, think for a second about what impression this leads you with. Now try to forget the words.

Ok.

Negative: dense, meandering, self-important
Positive: magical, intelligent, organic

Think again about what impression this description leaves you with.

In his book, Kahneman is using a similar experiment show how humans are effected by first impressions. It is meant to do a great deal more than describe novels, but hopefully I can use the device to demonstrate how I feel about this book, resulting in a confusing mix of ambiguity and frustration. Which, to be fair, is probably what Rushdie was going for.

In the positive-first scenario I go away thinking that Midnight’s Children is a book of magical realism, a splendidly original and creative piece of fiction that brilliantly characterizes the birth and trials of India as a nation, that happens to be a bit self-indulgent and long-winded. And, upon reading this description, I don’t disagree. The way in which Rushdie manages to tie the life of Saleem (the protagonist) inextricably from that of his country – from the moment of his birth through his first 31 years – is intellectually fascinating.  And worthy of a place in the top 100 books of the 20th century.  (It come’s 90th)

In the negative-first scenario I get the impression that a windy-but-intelligent author has a good idea, but it. He’s intentionally perverse. And a bit mad. My gosh does he use a lot of ellipses … It does … I think … get to be a bit much. And I know I am occasionally one to get carried away with punctuation and capitalization. And why the need to recap so often through the book? And isn’t the part in the jungle just a bit much? And it astounds me how a book can manage to be Both meandering AND dense. That is a literary feat fit only for as much sarcasm as I can muster. And, as I pause to re-read this description I also agree with myself. I didn’t like the book.  There are lots of others that I think I would give awards and plaudits to, instead.

I both liked and didn’t like this book. My ratings err on the ‘didn’t like’ side as a word of caution. It took me nearly three weeks (including two inter-continental flights!) to read this book. It would normally take me days. But I do feel good for (finally!!) having read it.

The front cover of my copy has a quote by the Sunday Times that describes Midnight’s Children as ‘vital’. Whilst my personal taste would disagree with the connotation of necessity, I very much agree with the idea of this book having vitality. (If you can make it through the first quarter of the book – during which the main character and narrator hasn’t even told of his own birth.) There is humanity in this book. And it is an utterly original idea.

Finally, this book features on both the Modern Library and Man Booker prize lists.  Which means, it was recognized in its day and retrospectively – which is impressive.  And I can understand that it is of historical significance, and for the ‘positive scenario’ described above. I can understand, but not personally Agree with it purely because I found it to be quite so unreadable. It’s a book I am proud to have read, but wouldn’t particularly advise you to read!