Dudes, it was the holidays this month, I think you all know what was distracting me!
Anyway, hope you all had a Merry Whatever you happen to celebrate, and Happy New Year!
I'll be back tomorrow with the next review. :)
In Which I Get A Tumblr Account
Hey peeps, in addition to being on Twitter, I'm now also on Tumblr.
I'm mainly planning to just get it set up so that I can mirror posts there, but seeing as how the twitter account is pretty much entirely me whining about my job and has absolutely nothing to do with the blog most of the time, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened to this tumblr thing, too.
I'm mainly planning to just get it set up so that I can mirror posts there, but seeing as how the twitter account is pretty much entirely me whining about my job and has absolutely nothing to do with the blog most of the time, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened to this tumblr thing, too.
R17. Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thomson [classic]
Context: This is the last of the "classic" reviews, and thus the most recent. I have a clear physical memory of this book, if not its content. It was summer of 2006, my heart was broken, and, if you'll forgive the drama of this metaphor, every moment was a blade. I read a lot of books that summer, sneakily borrowed from the collection of the people whose basement I occupied, or hauled from the library a mile away, in huge bunches, during the pleasant warm evenings. The first one was 1984, which we'll get to eventually, and then maybe I'll tell you the story that I've alluded to in the following review. Also, I don't remember what the "mystery" that I've written about here actually was.Year Published: 2005
Pages: 396
First Sentence: There were men in my room, and it was bright, too bright, and I was being lifted out of bed.
Review:
I first heard of this book from a review in Asimov's Science Fiction which had nothing but praise for the book. I, however, am somewhat less than impressed. Similar to The Man in the High Castle, I feel that there was a lot of potential to this concept that went to waste. Before I get into that too much, though, I should explain a little bit about Divided Kingdom and what exactly the "concept" I'm referring to is.
I like to compare this book to Orwell's 1984, in that it takes place in the not-so-distant future when the world has taken a drastic turn for the worse. In the case of Divided Kingdom, the aforesaid "turn for the worse" takes the form of a Rearrangement of the population of the United Kingdom into four quarters. People are classified into groups according to the four humours of old: the Red Quarter houses those who are sanguine, the Blue Quarter is home to the phlegmatics, cholerics are in the Yellow Quarter, and melancholics find themselves in the Green. Super cool, no? While it is definitely somewhat implausible, I really enjoy the idea of using old-school medical folly to divide a population. Anyway, our hero is Thomas Parry, who is probably the most boring protagonist that I've ever encountered. He is a gentleman of the Red Quarter, taken from his parents at the age of eight or so, given a new name and blah. He runs away.
There is something chronically wrong with the pacing in this book. I never once felt myself caught up in Thomas's adventure. There was one mystery in particular that I really just didn't understand. While the entire idea of a split along psychological lines is both really neat and implausible, this other mystery seems really just weird. I don't know if Thomson tossed it in to let the reader know that he wasn't really taking the idea that seriously either, or what. The trouble with pacing may also originate with the protagonist. I didn't like him at all. Maybe it was that he was middle aged. Maybe it was the numbness that he acknowledged within himself, because honestly there was a bit of a connection, however brief, when he'd mention his separation from his parents.
Whatever my reasons for disliking the main character and for the book being tragically slow, it remains a fact that I didn't really enjoy reading this book at all. I just felt like nothing really happened in it. In a way, 1984 has the same sort of anti-climax. The difference being that when I read 1984 I was really just desperately looking for a distraction, and probably would've read, you know, a textbook in a foreign language if I hadn't had the novel handy.
Overall, 1984 is a far superior book. You can go ahead and read Divided Kingdom; it's got decent prose, cute metaphors too. Although sometimes these metaphors assert themselves just a bit too much, and you feel like Thomson is maybe trying just a bit too hard. Something for a plane ride, or a distraction, but not favourite book material, I'd say.
84. The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
I was using Amazon Associates to easily link to book covers, but it looks like ad blockers don't like that very much. So instead, I'm going to start using my limited photographic abilities to just take pictures of the actual books I read. Warning: they're not very interesting-looking editions most of the time. -M.R.
Uncomfortable Plot Summary: An angsty teenager runs away from home.
Year Published: 1938
Pages: 418
First Sentence: That morning's ice, no more than a brittle film, had cracked and was now floating in segments.
Rating: 1/3 (don't bother)
Review:
Like Tobacco Road, I was really torn about the rating for The Death of the Heart, but not for the same reasons. Tobacco Road got 2/3 because I ended up deciding that the bad taste it left in my mouth was less important than its intent to leave a bad taste in my mouth. The Death of the Heart fails because although the subject matter is pretty intriguing, the book is just downright boring. It may approach some great truth about the loss of innocence and/or THE DEATH OF THE HEART, but I couldn't convince myself to care about it much. Still, it was more of an Ironweed than a Ginger Man in the end.
Portia Quayne is the main character. She's recently orphaned and spending a year living with her half-brother, Thomas, and his wife Anna, who are both terribly bizarre and even just terrible, actually. The intriguing thing is that Thomas' parents got divorced and his father married Portia's mother, his pregnant mistress. And while divorce hardly shocks anybody these days, I don't think it was quite as common in 1925 or so, when Thomas' parents would've done it.
Elizabeth Bowen doesn't waste any words on it, thought, so maybe I'm mistaken. Anyway, Portia, who's about 16, ends up falling in with Anna's friend Eddie, 23ish, who basically just uses her as entertainment, though things quickly mean more to her, since she's lonely and innocent and unloved.
Tragedy ensues, but like I said: meh.
There was one really good passage in this book, and here it is:
But no. I can't even think of anything else to say, it was that lacklustre.
Quotations:
Nothing arrives on paper as it started, and so much arrives that never started at all. To write is always to rave a little—even if one did once know what one meant, which at her age seems unlikely.
There is no fidelity like the fidelity of the vicarious lover who has once seen a kiss.
"...another thing I don't like is messed-up mouths. When I give a girl tea, I always look at her cup. Then, if she leaves any red muck on the rim, I say, 'Hullo, I didn't know that cup had a pink pattern.' Then the girl seems quite taken aback."
Uncomfortable Plot Summary: An angsty teenager runs away from home.Year Published: 1938
Pages: 418
First Sentence: That morning's ice, no more than a brittle film, had cracked and was now floating in segments.
Rating: 1/3 (don't bother)
Review:
Like Tobacco Road, I was really torn about the rating for The Death of the Heart, but not for the same reasons. Tobacco Road got 2/3 because I ended up deciding that the bad taste it left in my mouth was less important than its intent to leave a bad taste in my mouth. The Death of the Heart fails because although the subject matter is pretty intriguing, the book is just downright boring. It may approach some great truth about the loss of innocence and/or THE DEATH OF THE HEART, but I couldn't convince myself to care about it much. Still, it was more of an Ironweed than a Ginger Man in the end.
Portia Quayne is the main character. She's recently orphaned and spending a year living with her half-brother, Thomas, and his wife Anna, who are both terribly bizarre and even just terrible, actually. The intriguing thing is that Thomas' parents got divorced and his father married Portia's mother, his pregnant mistress. And while divorce hardly shocks anybody these days, I don't think it was quite as common in 1925 or so, when Thomas' parents would've done it.
Elizabeth Bowen doesn't waste any words on it, thought, so maybe I'm mistaken. Anyway, Portia, who's about 16, ends up falling in with Anna's friend Eddie, 23ish, who basically just uses her as entertainment, though things quickly mean more to her, since she's lonely and innocent and unloved.
Tragedy ensues, but like I said: meh.
There was one really good passage in this book, and here it is:
"Spring had brought with it no new particular pleasures—for little girls in England spring means the Easter holidays: bicycle rides in blazers, ginger nuts in the pockets, blue violets in bleached grass, paper-chases, secrets and mixed hockey."I'm not sure if the exceptional nature of it will come through out of context, but that tiny little bit is one of the most honest and accurate things I've ever seen written about little girls. They're one of the most maligned of groups, seldom depicted naturally, with a capacity for adventure equal to that of little boys. It's not really exceptional, but is almost always neglected. Really, this passage alone almost earned the book a 2/3 rating.
But no. I can't even think of anything else to say, it was that lacklustre.
Quotations:
Nothing arrives on paper as it started, and so much arrives that never started at all. To write is always to rave a little—even if one did once know what one meant, which at her age seems unlikely.
There is no fidelity like the fidelity of the vicarious lover who has once seen a kiss.
"...another thing I don't like is messed-up mouths. When I give a girl tea, I always look at her cup. Then, if she leaves any red muck on the rim, I say, 'Hullo, I didn't know that cup had a pink pattern.' Then the girl seems quite taken aback."
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