Kyle
Thematically there's a lot to unpack here, including gender roles, writer's creativity and sexuality. Tonally it is a little all over the place, sometimes struggling to make a smooth transition between absurdity and tragedy. Yet the book is an interesting character study on Garp himself, showing how life events can change a person like his son Walt's death. The story is ambitious, showing a person's story from conception to death. Irving has cited his admiration for Dickens before, and I can definitely see the narrative parallels.
It didn't always work for me, but after reading 30% of Hotel New Hampshire and finding it insufferable, not to mention A prayer for Owen Meaney was largely dull in its execution, meaning Garp is probably my favourite of Irvings so far.
Written in 1962 and semi-autobiographical, I have to give The Pumpkin Eater credit for a few things. It provides a pretty unique insight into the complexities of mental illness, marriage and the desire to find oneself. The protagonist Mrs. Armitage finds herself drifting through three marriages and an abundance of children before discovering her life has been enraptured by boredom and frustration, being slowly stifled by domesticity and colluding (sometimes quite happily, sometimes feeling she has no choice) in her own oppression. A affecting scene in Harrods where she has a nervous breakdown illustrates this perfectly.
However the book meanders and the last section of the book isn't as tightly written. It made me wish that Mortimer could have achieved the richness of a narrative like Mrs Bridge a book where it felt Connell perfectly captured what he was trying to say within 117 short vignettes. Apart from a few well done passages The Pumpkin Eater didn't have the emotional impact for me unfortunately.
Fantastic. Captures the complexity of human relationships in a humane and thoughtful manner. The language is often poignant, only adding to the tragic story. Definitely won't be my last Baldwin.
Beautiful prose, but could not develop any emotional connection whatsoever to these characters apart from Ivar. I came away wishing the bulk of the story was focused on him instead.
It meanders a bit at times, and the misogyny is problematic, particularly in the first chapter, but dammit, it's a touching character study of a middle-aged man trying to come to terms with how he's lived his life juxtaposed with an appreciation of American nature that won me over in the end.
I wasn't as emotionally involved as I thought I would be, but the prose is so beautifully written, and Plath portrays her own experiences with mental illness so vividly and harrowingly that I can see why it's regarded as a classic
This had a charm up to a certain point, attempting to recapture the FA Cup giant-killing magic or how a team from a tiny village known for its sugar beet farming pulled off the unthinkable and won the FA Cup. It would make one yearn for the days of men in sheepskin coats huddling together with their tweed caps and clutching a cup of Bovril in their hands, enduring a dismal 0-0 draw. Or as Carr points out, “ They bellowed disbelief at incompetence, cried scornfully to the grey heavens in godlike despair, clamoured angrily for revenge. For 20p, they did all this and were not held to account.” Eventually, the repetition of the humour became a bit grating, but I enjoyed what was there.
Short and sweet. I like the vivid imagery of it but only in the academic world could this somehow be analyzed and scrutinized in the way that it has been lol
A pitch-perfect novel. I think one of the many uses of Goodreads is the ability to discover works of literature that would have probably escaped me otherwise. This was on the Penguin modern classics list, I believe, and if it weren't for my desire to want to be a list completionist, then Mrs Bridge would have escaped me entirely.
What puts Mrs Bridge in the same category as other writers like Yates, Carver or Updike who have made astute observations about the suburban lifestyle of American society? Initially, the novel reads as a simple, straightforward portrait of a housewife, India Bridge and her devotion to her husband and three children. Yet much like the above writers, the text is much more layered than that. Evan S Connell deftly interweaves a variety of themes. Family relationships, privilege, the repression of social mores, and the longing to find one's individual self are scattered through the 117 short vignette-like chapters, each with its own title.
Most importantly, the reader gets a clear sense of the world that Mrs Bridge inhabits. Her life is not only filled with the challenges of being married to Mr Bridge, the rearing of her three children but just as important, keeping in line with the issues and concerns of her social setting. Mrs Bridge strives to find her place in the world she inhabits. Connell also demonstrates how the culture that Mrs Bride resides in can shape her views. For example, an earlier scene in the book has Mrs Bridge keeping a careful eye on her daughter's, Carolyn, relationship with a coloured girl, Alice Jones succumbing to the prejudice of her time.
The prose is outstanding, and many of the chapters end with a sense of closure. Consequently, each chapter is either a self-contained miniature event or things are left up for the reader to interpret. For example, this is how chapter 90 ends in which Mrs Bridge's son comes to realise that he has not fooled his mother about the reason why he crashed her car: “Although she had not said a word, he perceived that in some fantastic manner she sensed the complete truth, and he reflected that in matters however distantly related to sex she possessed supernatural powers of divination”.
Overall the narrative device used, the fact that the themes and issues Connell tackles are still relevant today, and it's the profound insight Mrs Bridge gives into the conditions of married and family life that make it a timeless masterpiece.
If Goodreads had a half star rating, I'd put this closer to 3.5 than a four. This is, at times, a beautiful recreation of Hugo's experiences as a boy living with his German mother and an Irish, nationalistic, father set amongst the backdrop of 1950's/60's Ireland. Though both parents clearly have different parenting styles, they are both united by nostalgia and a longing for a return to the good old days. The father yearns for an Ireland he imagines so much that he forces his children to only speak in Irish. The mother speaks about her own desire for Germany to return to where it was before the Nazi's occupation. It is this thematic strand that is captured pretty well.
Unfortunately, the scattered nature of the writing style is a bit of a downer. In every chapter I found, there was a tendency to go from subject to subject. For example, there are two chapters one after the other that discuss his father's friend, school experiences and relatives. I would have preferred a less is more approach here.
An intimate look at a Shaquille O Neal sized human who spends his days working at a pants factory, selling hot dogs and communicating with Myrna, a New York beatnik friend? Not as funny as I was expecting; a sense of comedic repetition can drag the story down, but Toole does have things to say about capitalism, consumerism and race that ultimately make it more than just a laugh-out-loud type book.
A heartwarming, sweet tale depicting long-lost summers on an island in Finland. The central theme is the poignant relationship between a grandmother and a small child, revealing the similarities and differences! between growing up and growing old. The story is an easy read, with little plot, but is rich in its descriptions of nature and, at times, is quite funny
A thorough and compelling read about one of the NBA's greatest dynasties. What puts this book into the category of great sportswriting IMO is it focuses on some of the lesser-known names associated with Showtime, like Jack McKinney to even the draft busts like Billy Thompson. Showtime understandably gives the well known names of the 80's Lakers like Magic, Kareem, Riley, Buss and Worthy its fair share of attention, but it also excels in presenting insights and anecdotes from almost everyone associated with the organization over the period.
The only slight niggle is that I would have loved a little section on Chick Hearn, the voice of the Lakers and the demise of Showtime lacks considerable detail, but these are only slight issues in what is an excellent read.
A little dull but nice to see that Steinbeck was in a beautiful part of the world.
Though it's potentially revealing in regards to the mindset of someone with suicidal thoughts and the play cleverly twists conventions by making it unclear whether she's talking with a doctor or to herself, the way in which the play was structured made it a slight challenge to fully engage with it. It reads more like a long poem. One could certainly argue however that was the point of the piece given how it can be looked at as Kane's real-life suicide note.
It is one of the few books I've read that captures the pain of mental illness, and I'd be curious to see how directors would adopt this as a theatre piece considering there are no stage directions given
As satires about the film industry go, it's pretty average, lacking the incisiveness needed to elevate the material. The last four pages add a bit of depth that was absent in the text.
This was disappointing considering it is listed on the Best American plays list and it's Pulitzer prize win in 1998. It pretty much has nothing to say over the traumas of sexual abuse of a young girl by her uncle and fails to show the emotional turmoil that Lil Bit would surely go through. There is also a notable lack of character development in which Lil Bit never seems to learn from her mistakes or any sort of character arc for anyone and thus I felt continuously disconnected from the play.
Oh and use of the choruses felt redundant adding very little to a plodding text
I don't mind experimental fiction as long as there's a little coherency to proceedings. While there are some lyrical musings in Speedboat about Adler's distant memories, relationships and occurrences, they never add up to anything meaningful.
I liked the Stone Diaries a lot, although I'm wondering is it because it's one of the only books I've read that creates a juxtaposition between reality and fiction. As the omniscient narrator, Daisy clarifies that her accounts of events are sometimes exaggerated and often unreliable throughout the novel. Usually, an autobiography is accurate in telling the truth about one's own life. However, throughout the book, presumably Daisy's autobiography, we see letters and monologues from other characters, varying and contradicting points of view, and each character's inner thoughts, which someone writing a typical autobiography could not know. I did admire how Shields portrayed this.
On the other hand, I felt a slight removal from the story, possibly because there was a bit of warmth missing in Daisy's life; every critical incident seemed to be one tragedy after another, or it ended in tears. The prose was beautifully written, but when the story is grim to the point of parody, then I became disinterested.
Lovely ending, though.
It does what it says on the tin, and for that, I find it very useful. Still, I wish Penguin classics would have taken a leaf out of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die collection by including a small essay with each title and why they believe it was worth adding. It's pretty barebones, just having the A-Z of author and title.
I'll give it an extra star just for that, though, since it's reminded me that Goodreads desperately desperately needs a sort by option on lists created on the site though it likely won't happen anytime soon.
I really enjoyed the first part, with a good range of characters, atmosphere and setting adeptly established. Even a three-page story of creating a sign on the grounds outside the Hat Creek Cattle Company was entertaining. It's just a shame that the second part foregoes any continuation of character development and opts to introduce yet more characters, whose purpose - it turns out - is to simply run into the characters from the first part.
It works as a counterpoint to the over-romanticization of the wild wild West in examing the brutality and unforgiveness of the landscape that Gus, Call and many others encounter. Underneath it all, there isn't much of a plot, though. Much of the book seemed to consist of an expositional backstory where McMurty elected to describe a character's origins and thoughts in great detail at the expense of the story.
Also, that dern ending. I expected a much stronger conclusion than whatever that was!
A groan-worthy twist aside, I liked this. Barry's prose is beautiful though the two different perspectives presented are eerily similar in their writing styles. The story is pretty engaging up until the dismal conclusion, where it felt that he had run out of ideas
Every sentence in the book is eloquent, and the prose is so enchanting that it made me take my time going through the story just to saviour its beauty.