Jeremy is a swell guy. He is a great gift giver. He read my post about looking for more R and B/soul stuff from about a year ago. So he bought me this book so I could educate myself. What a thoughtful gift! Unfortunately, the book is unreadable. It either is a boring recitation of facts or a verbose stab at hep writing. For example, Kenton writes about Thomas Dorsey, “But his new vocation couldn’t withstand the alternative prospect of a steady income of forty dollars a week; the first time God tugged at Dorsey, his landlord pulled him back hard.” While that isn’t that bad, I couldn’t deal with that kind of writing for 450 pages. I skimmed through after page 50. Promising concept, terrible execution.
Philip Roth - The Breast, 1972
A smug Literature professor of Kafka awakes one morning to discover that he has turned into a gigantic breast. He is hospitalized and tries to continue on with his life. But the only thing that he wants is for his girlfriend to lick and caress him. Even turned into a female body part, all he can think of are his male needs. Reminding me of everything from Metamorphosis to Johnny Got His Gun to Roth’s own Portnoy’s Complaint to the giant breast scence in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Too Afraid to Ask, this 89 page book was a perfect airplane read.
Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49, 1965
This is supposed to be a classic, right? If so, I’m not sure why. As I was reading this, I kept asking myself why I was wasting my time reading this book when I should be reading one of the many Vonnegut books I have not read. In tone and theme, this reminded me of a third rate Vonnegut. Oh so clever and cloying this book was. Am I being too hard on this book? Was I just in a bad mood as I read it on the way to San Francisco last month? Maybe I just don’t have much patience for a book in which the writer thinks he is being clever by name checking a fictional book titled An Account of the Singular Peregrinations of Dr. Diocletian Blobb among the Italians, Illuminated with Exemplary Tales from the True History of That Outlandish And Fantastical Race. Ugh. The whole book was like that.
Elmore Leonard - Get Shorty, 1990
While in San Francisco in October, I decided that I had to get a Leonard book for the flight back. So I bought a used copy of this book and was quite excited. I had heard great things about this book from Leonard fans and I have been on such a Leonard buzz since reading The Hot Kid over the summer. I did like this book but not nearly as much as The Hot Kid. I’m still excited to read more Leonard but something about this book didn’t quite do it for me. And I think the main reason is that I kept thinking of John Travolta the entire time and that ruined it for me. Which is strange because the very same thing actually enhanced my enjoyment when I read the novelization of Look Who’s Talking Too.
Travolta: Scientologist & Ruiner of Elmore Leonard Books
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11 comments:
I have never read any Pynchon, except for a few pages of The Crying of Lot 49. I picked up (how do you do you underline titles?) The Crying of Lot 49 a long while ago and thought I was about to get in on something that I had been missing. I could not force myself to read it though. I dismissed Pynchon completely.
I would have advised you to stay away from Get Shorty, only b/c when youhave seen the movie it taints it...as a Leonard freak i read it pre movie and loved it but I jive with your point
Your next Leonard assignment: Freaky Deeky, great leonard style and funny 60's radical satire...one of the first I read and it hooked me...
The Hater
ps I have not kept up with the serial, but plan on catching up soon
Oh also you should read Sweet Soul Music if you want to read about 60's soul...
The Hater
No, I think the obvious thing to do is read any of the myriad brilliant pieces of contemporary fiction written by a woman, because your boy-vision is getting all tunnely up in here...
That said,
A) The Breast is the biggest piece of misogynist garbage I have ever laid eyes on.
B) The Crying of Lot 49 is a book best appreciated at the age of 17. Past that I can't account for its goodness, much like Tim Robbins. It makes me feel old to say it, but Still Life with Woodpecker just isn't brilliant past college.
Try:
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Or if you aren't ready for the ladies, go for a book about a man who likes to dress as one:
Until I Find You by John Irving
or one who's actually a man:
Middlessex by Jeffrey Eugenides
(It won't let me underline in the comments, so I ital-ed instead.)
I'm with Bri on Jhumpa Lahiri. Interpreter of Maladies (short stories) is rather good too. On the subcontinental female ashore in an alien and unforgiving west kick, I'd suggest Brick Lane by Monica Ali too.
goddamit weasel, i was going to suggest interpreter of maladies. although i can see dan hating it. how about
Ann(i)e Proulx? is that how you spell her name? she wrote the shipping news. and though i did not enjoy it as much as i wanted to, maybe myla goldberg's bee season?
Annie Proulx = Cormac McCarthy for ladies.
I've read one of her books- Accordion Crimes; not bad, but I couldn't stop humming "Squeezebox" by the Who as I read it. Coupled with the fact that my mother bases her entire understanding of North America on Proulx's output (Newfoundland? Maine? Eh! What's the difference? for example) and that her name is too close to "Prolix" I've gone right off her.
thank you for the recommendations. new books added to the wish list.
bri, of course the breast is misogynistic - the character is an asshole. i didn't read it as roth defending or glorifying the main character but rather showing how pathetic he and by extension men in general are.
also, i've read most of john irving's books but not one. when is that one from?
i think that's the latest john irving book, loosely based on his own story of tracking down his father, or something like that.
OK then, listo. I just need you to acknowledge the misogynism. I was convinced by the husband of Maestra's teacher-in-crime that I should most definitely read the latest Roth and I bought it now that it's out in paperback. I will read it after November (NaNo, you know).
And youthlarge is right - it's the latest, based very much on parts of his own childhood story and I really liked it (much better than that rather crappy Hand one that came out before this). I heard him speak about it this summer and feel just a little bit more in love with him than I have already been (ever since I was 16 and read Hotel New Hampshire - his, in my opinions, are books that stand up to time... Owen Meany is my favorite book period.)
If I close my eyes I can still see the psychedelic cover of The Crying of Lot 49. Pynchon was delivered to us, in the mid sixties, as an eccentric genius. Being impressionable, I took the bait. I never finished another one of his novels and I just always figured that I wasn't smart enough to understand him.
Jhumpa Lahiri. Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies are both wonderful.
By the way, She lives here in PS. Her child applied to preschool here last spring but wound up not enrolling.
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