Masterpiece
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« Previous Entries Thursday, July 10th, 2008Review: Unaccustomed Earth
Although I haven’t yet read Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize winning Interpreter of Maladies, after reading Unaccustomed Earth, I can understand why the committee was so impressed with her writing. Her stories of the Bengali immigrant experience were very well developed, and they had closure to them, something I’ve noticed is often times lacking in modern short stories. All the characters in the book have similar backgrounds — high intelligence and high potential — yet each story was unique. Each character was struggling with his or her own set of issues, most of them due to the individuals’ adjustment, or lack thereof, of living in a culture so different from their own or that of their parents.
Themes explored include family, loyalty, duty, and honor. Relationships encountered were father and daughter, husband and wife, brother and sister, roommate to roommate, and childhood friend to childhood friend. Birth, life, marriage, children, divorce, and death. These few stories covered a wide range of experiences of the Bengali immigrant living in America and illustrated well how being Bengali shaped the characters’ choices.
Highly recommended. I will definitely be reading Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake at a later date.
2008, 333 pp.
Rating: 
Popularity: 20% [?]
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008Review: Daughters of the North
Daughters of the North, known as The Carhullan Army in the UK, is a dystopian novel set in an environmentally and economically ravaged Britain. Citizens are forced to be registered in cities where they are assigned work for the good of the state. Contraception is mandated and every female is fitted with a device for that purpose. Not only that, but they must also submit to periodic checks to insure the device is in place. Unable to remain where she is under such circumstances, “Sister” escapes to an all-female commune that she knew about as a child. Her reception there is at first strained, as the members of the group want to insure she is not a spy sent by the state. As “Sister” gains their trust and tells them of the conditions in the nearby city, it becomes uncertain whether the group will be able to remain in their isolated location for long. A decision must be made to stay or fight.
Author Sarah Hall was nominated for the Booker Prize for her book The Electric Michelangelo. I recommend this title to readers who enjoy dystopian fiction with a feminist slant. While not nearly as captivating as The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, it is worth a look if you enjoy reading the dystopian genre.
2008 in the U.S., 240 pp.
Rating: 
Popularity: 18% [?]
Monday, June 30th, 2008Review: The Penelopiad
I love mythology in general, and The Odyssey in particular, so I was hoping to love this book. I did. Margaret Atwood’s retelling of the famous myth from Penelope’s point of view is brilliant and quite humorous. As she tells the story from Hades, we get Penelope’s take on her father, Odysseus, Telemachus, and Helen among others. You probably have to know the story of The Odyssey fairly well to really get the full impact, though. If you’re familiar with the original myth, you must read this re-telling.
This was my fourth Atwood, and I’m looking forward to reading even more of her work during the second Canadian Book Challenge.
2005, 198 pp.
Rating:
Popularity: 20% [?]
Sunday, June 29th, 2008Review: Bear by Marian Engel
Ummm…..no. No, no, no, no, no. I don’t think I can recommend this title. That this book won the Governor General’s Award flabbergasts me. A librarian and a bear get kinky on a small Canadian island. That’s all you really need to know to realize why I didn’t like this book.
1976 Governor General’s Award
1976, 141 pp.
Rating: 
Popularity: 22% [?]
Friday, June 20th, 2008Review: Life of Pi
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002. It’s the story of Pi Patel from his childhood to his time on a lifeboat after the ship carrying his family and his father’s zoo animals sinks. Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger, shares Pi’s fate on the raft. Due to the tiger, he must constantly be on guard during his 227 day ordeal.
I really didn’t get all that much into the story until the ship sunk — it really gets going at that point. And then, just when I was getting tired of all the desperate tactics for survival in the lifeboat, another interesting development occurs. I was surprised by the twist ending as well, but it was a good one. I was impressed by the symbolism in the book. Recommended.
2001, 319 pp.
Rating: 
Popularity: 11% [?]
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008Review: Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants tells a great story. I loved the story, and I loved the characters. I loved Rosie the elephant. I did not love the explicit scenes, particularly when I had to hear it on an audio CD. I was relieved to find that Natasha from Maw Books felt the exact same way. I think there is a strong minority of readers who are getting fed up with this type of content in books. I know I am. But, as I said, I wanted to continue hearing the story because other than those parts, it was very compelling.
Jacob Jankowski is the vet (with an asterix) for a second-rate circus. His services and presence aren’t always wanted by the circus regulars. The book is told in flashbacks to great effect. I really enjoyed that format for this particular story. The readers for the audio CD were David LeDoux and John Randolph Jones. They both were good, but whoever did Jacob Jankowski as an old man was brilliant. I thoroughly loved those sections.
Water for Elephants is not only a love story; it’s also about finding ‘family’ with those around you. I just wish I could have ‘redlighted’ a few parts.
2006, 350 pp.
Rating:
Popularity: 11% [?]
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008Jacob Two Two’s First Spy Case
Poor Mr. Dinglebat was in a state. He had, he told Jacob Two-Two, recently invested a good deal of money in buying Canadian military secrets, and now he was stuck with them. “No customers,” he said.
This clever children’s book by Mordecai Richler was written for his children and modeled after the same, and it was just simply a delight to read. Featuring not only Jacob Two-Two, but also I.M. Greedyguts, Miss Sour Pickle, and Perfectly Loathsome Leo Louse, this third installment of the Jacob Two-Two series made me laugh out loud at several points. I really, really enjoyed it. (It’s also a good short book for the Canadian Challenge — or if you need a ‘J’ title!)
1995, 144 pp.
Rating:
Popularity: 12% [?]
Thursday, June 12th, 2008Review: The Road Past Altamont
I have always thought that the human heart is a little like the ocean, subject to tides, that joy rises in it in a steady flow, singing of waves, good fortune, and bliss; but afterward, when the high sea withdraws, it leaves an utter desolation in our sight. So it was with me that day.
Written in French by Gabrielle Roy and translated by Joyce Marshall, The Road Past Altamont captures a sweet young girl’s thoughts and feelings perfectly. I also enjoyed Roy’s descriptions of the vastness of the Manitoba prairie.
The book is really four interconnected stories more than a novel. The first story, “My Almighty Grandmother,” tells of Christine’s love and awe of her matriarch. The second story, “The Old Man and the Child,” is about Christine’s relationship with an elderly neighbor and their visit to Lake Winnipeg. This one was my favorite as I found so much sweetness in the pair’s friendship. In “The Move,” Christine discovers that not everyone lives as she does, and in “The Road Past Altamont,” an adult Christine deals with her mother’s increasing age and unrealized dreams.
I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy Willa Cather or L.M. Montgomery. I would definitely read another book by Gabrielle Roy.
1966, 146 pp.
Rating:
Popularity: 13% [?]
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
I was shocked at the ending and thought it was another senseless death until I read Deathly Hallows. I never believed, though, that the ‘murderer’ was a death eater. I kept my hopes up that the person in question wasn’t really dead — just like I did with the murdered one in Order of the Phoenix. Alas, it was not to be…
2005, 652 pp.
Rating: 4
Popularity: 7% [?]
Saturday, May 31st, 2008Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
I listened to part of this on an 11 hour road trip, and it was a great way to spend the time. I actually didn’t mind the length of the book, but I did mind the death in the end. It just didn’t seem right to me. I wasn’t ready for that character to leave the scene just yet. Another thing I didn’t care for was Sirius’ whinyness. It really started getting on my nerves. I envisioned him as a noble character, not an overly whiny one.
I’m writing this review after completing all seven books, and I think this is where the series started to break down for me. I didn’t mind that the story was getting darker, but the death at the end just seemed senseless.
2003, 896 pp.
Rating: 4
Popularity: 8% [?]
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