November - This Month in Reading

At the end of October, I wanted to finish my challenges. I almost met that goal; I only have a couple books to read in order to meet a couple of my goals:

Back to the Classics Challenge: 10/12 books read
Color Coded Challenge: completed!
TBR Pile Challenge: technically completed, but could read 2 bonus books
LGBTQIA Challenge: completed!
Mount TBR Challenge: 33/60 books read

Mount TBR is more complicated. I am not sure how I can cram in 27 books into December. I also have some unread ARCs I should really read, so that would be 30 books - a book a day or thereabouts. I haven't had the best year this year, either for reading or in general, and frankly, I think I am just going to let myself off the hook. I will do my best to complete the other 2 challenges  and really try to manage the ARCs but for the first time I am not going to knock myself out to complete Mount TBR. It stinks and I feel like a quitter, but oh well. It's not the end of the world either.

So for December, I'd like to read 4 books, to truly complete the TBR Pile Challenge and complete the Back to the Classics Challenge, and try to read at least a couple ARCs, since I feel really guilty about not managing that yet.

I truly hope your late 2017 reading is going much better than mine!

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - Dee Brown

Readers, this will be brief.

This book was 400 pages of unrelenting misery. It was a horrific chronicle of battles and massacres and broken promises and broken treaties and unrelenting racism. It was absolutely horrifying and awful and yet I am glad I read it. It will probably give me nightmares but it is all true and one of the worst parts of a 200+ year history filled with terrible moments, most of them fueled by racism. And if you think we are doing better today... sorry, I have nothing more to say.

The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

This book was something of a departure from the previous 2 this month, in that it was much lighter fare, although not a happy tale by any means. The story was very similar to that of The House of Mirth, in that the characters are trapped by the social mores of their time and place (in this case, upper class people in 1870s New York City) and are thereby unable to do what they would really like to do.  I found it really frustrating in that regard, because I despise the whole "what will the neighbors think??!!?!?!?!?!?!11211/?1" nonsense that was imposed on me my whole life, and this is just a larger variation on that, and twice as nonsensical. On the other hand, it is also a wicked satire of that very nonsense, so in that way it's at least a little satisfying.

Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness - Kenzaburo Oe

After the lukewarm reaction to the previous book, I went looking for something I hoped would be different. Well, this choice was indeed different, but not necessarily an antidote for what ailed me. If that makes sense.

This book is really a collection of 4 short novella-type stories. Although there seems to be a connection between some of the characters in 3 of the stories, it might just be a feeling I have. The titular story deals with the same subject matter as A Personal Matter, which is not uncommon, as authors do explore similar themes. All in all this collection wasn't what I was in the mood for, so that's probably why it didn't connect with me the way I was hoping it would.

The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (spoilers?)

To be honest, I'm surprised I was able to get through this incredible doorstop of a book in only 11 days. What's funny about it is that as long as it is, it isn't particularly sprawling in scope at all - it doesn't cover a lot of characters or a really long time period or anything. It does get into the backstories of all 4 titular brothers, which I found interesting.

But when I had reached page 500 and the crime that is the centerpiece of the book still hadn't happened, I confess my interest level did lower perceptibly. While I generally enjoyed the first half of the book, once the crime eventually occurs, it all kind of goes downhill for me. The book gets bogged down in paragraphs that stretch over pages and character speeches that repeat the same ideas over and over. And then we get into the whole "I love [character]!l S/he is wonderful!" Five seconds later: "I could never love [character]! S/he has too many faults/loves [someone else]/is guilty/is innocent/etc. etc. etc." The book could have told the same story in about 1/3 of the length and lost nothing.

So I guess this was 50/50 - I liked part of it and didn't really get into the other part. It's surprising because I really did like Crime and Punishment a lot. It's most likely due to my own personal failings as a reader that I wasn't 100% with this one.

October - This Month in Reading

October reading went well for me - I managed 12 books, and I finished 2 challenges - hooray! Let's do a quick check-in:

Back to the Classics Challenge: 8/12 books read
Color Coded Challenge: completed!
TBR Pile Challenge: 10/12 books read
LGBTQIA Challenge: completed!
Mount TBR Challenge: 29/60 books read

I'm still behind on the overall Mount TBR Challenge - I should be at 50 books at the end of October, if I had stuck to the 5 books per month idea - but I made a lot of headway on the other challenges so I'm happy with all this progress, and with all this reading.

For November, I'm going to start off with the Brothers Karamazov, which is just under 1,000 pages long (gulp!) so that might take a bit of time to read, which might slow down the other reading. That's OK, I should still have time to complete these other challenges with any remaining time in November, plus December.

Happy Halloween!

The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins (Spoilers?)

Here's the welcome anecdote to my disappointment with the last book. Wilkie Collins has cemented his place as one of my literary crushes with this book, and I don't even hold his friendship with Charles Dickens against him. Readers, once I started reading, I couldn't put this book down, and I bitterly resented anything (including sleep and meals) that took me away from the story.

And what a story it is. We have a series of unreliable narrators, all of whom show biases that affect their ability to see things clearly, telling an unfolding story that generates as many questions as it answers right up until the end. I've mentioned that I am one of those people who can suspend disbelief and go along with any decently written story, and in fact, if I can figure out where the story is going it must be super obvious. Readers, I could never have predicted the solution to this mystery if I had tried for years. And trust this author to have the ultimate ending be just as I would have wished it to be. It really almost brought a tear to my eye.

One neat thing was a reference the author makes to the murder case that is the topic of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher - I thought it was a reference to that case, and reading the introduction to the novel, I was vindicated.

All in all this was, to quote innumerable book reviewers, an "intricately plotted" mystery with well drawn characters that is also an amazing page turner. Clearly I need to read more Collins too. Highly recommended.

The Charterhouse of Parma - Stendahl

Well, readers, it was bound to happen - after a streak of liking all the books I was reading, I hit one I just couldn't get into. Maybe it was the translation, who knows, but this book just didn't send me. It seemed like it was about twice as long as it should have been, and the characters didn't seem like people I was worried about or cared too much about. Maybe it's just my mental state, maybe it's the aforementioned translation, but this one I can't recommend, unfortunately.

A Room with a View - E.M. Forster

Sometimes when I read books, particularly British books, written in this era, I find myself bemused by the things some of the characters take as signs of bad breeding, or as insulting behavior. Not to mention the whole "betters" thing, and the extreme class consciousness on display. I realize that that is often the author's point - they are satirizing aspects of the contemporary culture - but I still find them baffling. Part of me just wants to scream - UGH, just let the two people who are obviously in love get together without all of this silly turmoil! On the other hand, the turmoil can be sort of amusing, even if it's also frustrating.

But I don't mean to sound like a grump. All in all I enjoyed this book and it was a pleasant read.

The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka (Spoilers)

What can I possibly say about this book that hasn't already been said? It's a classic for a reason, and it definitely deserves this distinction. It's a dark and disturbing story that is about reversals - Gregor Samsa begins the story as the breadwinner of his household, supporting his parents and sister, and ends the story as their burden, preventing them from getting ahead, much as they were preventing him getting what he wanted out of life. I really like the way the author writes realistically about beetle-Gregor's movements; although he can understand human speech, he's not an anthropomorphized walking, talking cartoon type beetle but an actual insect. All in all this is one of those stories that won't soon leave your mind once you have read it. Highly recommended.