Todd Warner
An incredible account from the author of Killers of a Flower Moon. I'm in awe of the work required to collate and then articulate this story almost as much as the events themselves.
The Wager is a harrowing tale of perseverance, discipline, brutality, hubris, and survival that illustrates and brings to life humanity at its extremes.
A love letter to the written word, My Reading Life is a window into the development of a reader, a writer, and ultimately a person. This anthology of personal narratives is so full of warmth and bitterness and self-reflection and wishful thinking and love for all the books and people in his life. The book also conveys a palpable throughline of sadness. Conroy struggled with sadness throughout his life, which is subtly reflected in the stories of his life.
I loved LOVED this book. I have to let it simmer in my brain for awhile. It may eventually become a 5-star book for me (only reserved for favorites). But for now, 4-stars for a book I truly loved.
In closing, I share a couple of passages I loved taken from two chapters toward the end of the book.
From chapter Why I Write, p304 - on the topic of good writing:
Good writing is the hardest form of thinking. It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear. If the writing is good, then the result seems effortless and inevitable. But when you want to say something life-changing or ineffable in a single sentence, you face both the limitations of the sentence itself and the extent of your own talent. When you come close to succeeding, when the words pour out of you just right, you understand that these sentences are all part of a river flowing out of your own distant, hidden ranges, and all words become the dissolving snow that feeds your mountain streams forever. The language locks itself in the icy slopes of our own high passes, and it is up to us, the writers, to melt the glaciers within us. When these glaciers break off, we get to call them novels, the changelings of our burning spirits, our life's work.
From chapter The City, p329-330 - on the topic of “what a good book does”:
I cheer when a writer stops me in my tracks, forces me to go back and read a sentence again and again, and I find myself thunderstruck, grateful the way readers always are when a writer takes the time to put them on the floor. That's what a good book does—it puts readers on their knees. It makes you want to believe in a world you just read about—the one that will make you feel different about the world you thought you lived in, the world that will never be the same.
Clever storyline. Fun, quirky ending. Neat twists and turns though a tad predictable. But the writing is a bit sophomoric, “young adult-ish”, and blah. Fortunately, the plotline makes up for it. This is not high-lit by any stretch, but it doesn't need to be. It is what it is.
So, writing: 2.5 to 3 stars.
Storyline: 4 ... cuz, in the end, it keeps you reading and pushes you through the dull parts.
I will round up and call it a 4.
Tremendous, as is most anything McCarthy writes. An exploration of life and death and societal change and fate and individual agency.
Love and loss. The clash of cultures. History and warfare. Generational turmoil. This is an excellent read that really touched some open wounds in my life right now. The story is strong for 3/4 of the book then weakens a bit towards the end, but it's excellent.
Literary and very cerebral and 100% dialogue. A brilliant complement to The Passenger that explores genius and the big questions of life, meaning, and purpose. The real genius here is McCarthy. This story could only have been pulled off by this author.
UPDATE: I can't stop thinking about this book. I changed my review from 4.0 to 4.75. it may be a 5-star review in another month of musing. It is just so good.
Quote from this Nation article...
https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/cormac-mccarthy-late-style/
Billed at once as the culminating pinnacle of McCarthy's career and an unexpected departure from his earlier work, The Passenger and Stella Maris are sibling novels about incest, mourning, mathematics, salvage diving, schizophrenia, New Orleans, theoretical physics, Knoxville, the invention of nuclear weapons, car racing, suicide, vaudeville theater, the weight of history, the sins of the father, psychiatry, the crisis of the European sciences, and the moral decline of the West. At once intricate and beautiful, challenging and moving [...]
So. Good.
Outstanding novel that combines full on mystery with suspense, plus psychological drama, plus time-travel-sorta, plus plus plus... And the premise is just so darn clever!
What I loved most about this was its examination of what it means to be human. The 6 protagonists are fully fleshed out characters with differing, but converging motivations, who all wrestle with that big question of “What does it mean to be a human being?”
In summary, Six Wakes (by the way, I LOVE that title) is both a page-turner and something that makes you think. Great novel. I enthusiastically recommend.
I kind of had a love/like/WTF relationship with this book. It's so darn clever and yet ridiculous at the same time. The characters are exaggerations and silly. And the dialogue, Gah!
On top of that, the “rules” for this whole vampirism thing make no sense at all, and there are no explanations for how they figured out those rules. The good doctor just knows from some dude who told him and assumed it all to be true, no matter how far fetched.
But still, Dracula is an enjoyable romp that explores some interesting themes that I'm unsure the author knew were even there.
This Everyman Library edition (they are always the best editions) includes an introduction by Joan Acocella who concludes with “Dracula is like the work of other nineteenth-century writers. You can complain that their novels are loose, baggy monsters, that their poems are crazy and unfinished. Still, you gasp at what they're saying: the truth.” I think I can agree with that.
An immersive, unique, character- and setting-driven read.
The only significant criticism I have for this book is the narrative gets a bit wooden when it drifts away from the main protagonist. It also tends to be a bit too sentimental and overwrought. But on the whole, the story is very nearly perfect.
The world building is so visceral. The protagonist ages from 6 to adulthood and the author really immerses you into her mind and setting. You grow with her throughout her trials and tribulations . . . her cruel then caring education.
There is a murder mystery here and the story almost doesn't need it given how interesting the characters and setting are which makes this a compelling for reread. But the mystery is tense and keeps you at the edge of your seat to the end.
Oh! And the science! The book serves also as an exclamation of love for the natural world—a love for the small things, the overlooked things, by an overlooked girl— and expertly examines human behavior through the lens of a naturalist.
Just a fun and fantastic novel.
“Walking with Spring” is an enjoyable trek if a bit matter-of-fact, but still, it's a great travelogue of the first ever through-hike of the Appalachian Trail (a bucket list item).
Tremendous. The author combines very real themes of conflict, morality, and struggle with “escapist fantasy”. A new favorite of the genre.
I beautifully written introspection. A peek into the mind of one of America's important writers.
Very literary. There is setting and character and relationships. That's it. The plot is interesting in that it is never really what you expect it to be. The main thrust of the novel is an exploration of the mind and spirit and mythology and state of being.
Only mature and focused readers will “get” this novel, but if they do, it's a real treat created to make them think and reflect. And of course, as always, McCarthy's prose is so very elegant. Loved it.
UPDATE: I can't stop thinking about this book. I changed my review from 3.5 to 4.75. it may be a 5-star review in another month of musing. It is just so good.
Quote from this Nation article...
https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/cormac-mccarthy-late-style/
Billed at once as the culminating pinnacle of McCarthy's career and an unexpected departure from his earlier work, The Passenger and Stella Maris are sibling novels about incest, mourning, mathematics, salvage diving, schizophrenia, New Orleans, theoretical physics, Knoxville, the invention of nuclear weapons, car racing, suicide, vaudeville theater, the weight of history, the sins of the father, psychiatry, the crisis of the European sciences, and the moral decline of the West. At once intricate and beautiful, challenging and moving [...]
Second time reading. Still brilliant. And the prose ... incredible. This is one of those few books I could set down after finishing and then just pick right back up again.
Unique series. Extremely well written. But a bit... all over the place, redundant, often hard to follow, and in the end... meh. I liked the style, the dialog, the world, and the general idea behind it all... but the plot was tiresome and time again I said to myself “why am I reading this?”
Anyway. Loads of people love this series. I liked elements of it, but I am not really a fan.
What a tremendous book. Probably the best of its genre I have read in many years. Military sci-fi, allegorically linked to the Vietnam War... and incredibily inventive with the time dilation plot mechanisms. Great commentary on the human condition. Loved this book!
Love the system. It's life-changing.
The book is also excellent. It expands on and clarifies what's available online as well as serving as a thought provoking treastis on living life better though goal and time management. I highly recommend. Take notes as you go and implement.
A fascinating look into the world of obsession and the lives of exceptional children and their parents. The prose was more than a bit stilted and cold as was the author himself (my impression), but the story of their lives is engaging and truly very unique.
(Note, the book is a very different animal than the movie. The movie is spectacular, by the way.)
This book... tome really (it's really really long) is stunningly good and so very clearly written and researched. I've been long thinking about this topic, but it took a Stephen Pinker to confirm most of my suspicions as to why violence has not only declined but dramatically declined. He then, of course, adds plentiful evidence, reasoning, numbers, and description that paints a contextually rich historical picture of where we once were, and where we are today.
I can't recommend this book enough. It's worth the time to work your way through it. Outstanding accomplishment.
Wow.
It took me a minute to sink into the third person present PoV and the lack of paragraphs and dialogue marks and the certain Irishness of the prose. And then ... suddenly ... I found myself swept away by this fevered dream of a mother struggling to scrape out a bit of sanity in an insane and tragic world, mama-bearing her way through as best she can.
Wow.
You have never read a story like this and will never again. I highly, highly recommend this.
Wow.
...
Oh, by the way, this won the Booker Prize in 2023.