petricor's first fifty books in one year challenge
Discussie50 Book Challenge
Sluit je aan bij LibraryThing om te posten.
1petricor
Hi. I haven't (or at least I conveniently don't remember) done a 50 book challenge before beyond a vague New Year's resolution of "read more books this year" (which rarely panned out).
I'm not an avid reader. I joined the site in an attempt to organise myself a bit better (and publicly shame myself with goals like these).
Looking at everyone's libraries, I'm jealous at people's abilities to devour books. I wish I had that.
I listened to like four audio-books in the last month and it felt great to go on those adventures as cheesy as it sounds.
And a curious thing happened .. of late, I'm just not that interested in film, which was my main hobby. So maybe that's a good sign, I don't know.
So here's to something different, although I'll be reading a lot of the same-y books, because I want to (for the most part) get through books I bought but didn't start before buying or checking out new books.
Goal: a humble 50 books in a year (from the time I joined LT on September 26, 2021 to September 25, 2022)
currently ... 16/50
Galapagos (Vonnegut) | Timequake (Vonnegut) | Slapstick or Lonesome More! (Vonnegut) | Migraine (Sacks) | Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut)
Breakfast of Champions (Vonnegut) | Player Piano (Vonnegut) | Hocus Pocus (Vonnegut) | Mother Night (Vonnegut) | God Bless You, Mr Rosewater (Vonnegut)
Deadeye Dick (Vonnegut) | Bluebeard (Vonnegut) | The Melancholy of Resistance (Krasznahorkai) | Jailbird (Vonnegut) | The Metamorphosis (Kafka)
The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon)
Feel free to post here, too! I'd love to meet people on here and am always open to suggestions/recs. :)
Warning! There will be spoilers! Although I'm mostly jotting quotes down. Too tired for reviews.
2petricor
01. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 29th September - ★★★★
About 1/4th of the way through it...
I'm not loving it as much as The Sirens of Titan but it's still got a charm about it from the absurdity.
Haven't yet hit the big spoiler thing which happens (which the back book cover mentions, maybe a case of TMI).
update: What a ride. The colorful cast of characters made you forget that, actually, Vonnegut never really touched on the evolution of humans into furry sea animals. Hard sci-fi this is not, which is totally fine, because Vonnegut repeatedly takes the mick out of people and their "big brains." He skilfully played with expectations by giving me information on what would happen in the future so early on that he subverted the circumstances later on for twists/big reveals.
I also thought Vonnegut was pulling my leg with vampiric ground finches, but apparently they're a thing.
Clever, fun, and increasingly chaotic.
I'm now a proponent of devolution from our "big brains." :')
About 1/4th of the way through it...
I'm not loving it as much as The Sirens of Titan but it's still got a charm about it from the absurdity.
Haven't yet hit the big spoiler thing which happens (which the back book cover mentions, maybe a case of TMI).
update: What a ride. The colorful cast of characters made you forget that, actually, Vonnegut never really touched on the evolution of humans into furry sea animals. Hard sci-fi this is not, which is totally fine, because Vonnegut repeatedly takes the mick out of people and their "big brains." He skilfully played with expectations by giving me information on what would happen in the future so early on that he subverted the circumstances later on for twists/big reveals.
I also thought Vonnegut was pulling my leg with vampiric ground finches, but apparently they're a thing.
Clever, fun, and increasingly chaotic.
I'm now a proponent of devolution from our "big brains." :')
3petricor
02. Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 4th October - ★★★★
Might as well start another Vonnegut.
Vonnegut even at his most frustrated worst manages to combine autobiographical musings with fiction to create a hodgepodge of leftovers from a book he never managed to write.
About a "timequake", where spacetime contracts and people have to relive ten years of their lives to the point of apathy when free will kicks in again, the book is a particularly good read during COVID-19 restrictions which end up feeling a bit like time is stuck in a loop.
Some quotes...
"You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do."
“In real life as in grand opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse.”
“Extenuating circumstance to be mentioned on Judgment Day: We never asked to be born in the first place.”
“Scum of the Earth as some may be in their daily lives, they can all be saints in emergencies.”
“She died believing in the Trinity and Heaven and Hell and all the rest of it. I'm so glad. Why? Because I loved her.”
“If this isn’t nice, what is?”
Might as well start another Vonnegut.
Vonnegut even at his most frustrated worst manages to combine autobiographical musings with fiction to create a hodgepodge of leftovers from a book he never managed to write.
About a "timequake", where spacetime contracts and people have to relive ten years of their lives to the point of apathy when free will kicks in again, the book is a particularly good read during COVID-19 restrictions which end up feeling a bit like time is stuck in a loop.
Some quotes...
"You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do."
“In real life as in grand opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse.”
“Extenuating circumstance to be mentioned on Judgment Day: We never asked to be born in the first place.”
“Scum of the Earth as some may be in their daily lives, they can all be saints in emergencies.”
“She died believing in the Trinity and Heaven and Hell and all the rest of it. I'm so glad. Why? Because I loved her.”
“If this isn’t nice, what is?”
4petricor
03. Slapstick or Lonesome No More! by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 5th October - ★★★★
I told myself I wasn't going to binge on another one of Vonnegut's books so soon, but this one's so teensy and available, that I gave it a pass. The book opens to an illustration of Laurel and Hardy, so you know, already a good sign.
It was strange reading Vonnegut say this was the closest he would come to autobiography after having read Timequake just earlier.
And what an analogy it is.
A man goes from seclusion to President of America, from intertwined in telepathic embrace with his twin neanderthaloid sister to isolated on a drug amidst "The Green Death" and disintegration of the country. Interesting enough he solves America's loneliness problem with assigned middle names. There's miniature men from China, too. It's a real hoot.
“If you can do no good, at least do no harm.”
“History is merely a list of surprises,' I said. 'It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down.”
“I said that all the damaging excesses of Americans in the past were motivated by loneliness rather than a fondness for sin.”
"Hi ho."
“Why don't you take a flying (!#*/) at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying (!#*/) at the mooooooooooooon?”
I told myself I wasn't going to binge on another one of Vonnegut's books so soon, but this one's so teensy and available, that I gave it a pass. The book opens to an illustration of Laurel and Hardy, so you know, already a good sign.
It was strange reading Vonnegut say this was the closest he would come to autobiography after having read Timequake just earlier.
And what an analogy it is.
A man goes from seclusion to President of America, from intertwined in telepathic embrace with his twin neanderthaloid sister to isolated on a drug amidst "The Green Death" and disintegration of the country. Interesting enough he solves America's loneliness problem with assigned middle names. There's miniature men from China, too. It's a real hoot.
“If you can do no good, at least do no harm.”
“History is merely a list of surprises,' I said. 'It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down.”
“I said that all the damaging excesses of Americans in the past were motivated by loneliness rather than a fondness for sin.”
"Hi ho."
“Why don't you take a flying (!#*/) at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying (!#*/) at the mooooooooooooon?”
5petricor
04. Migraine by Oliver Sacks - finished 12th October - ★★★
Ran out of Vonnegut books and not quite ready for another audio-book (still reading Lovecraft compilation; rest in peace, me), so here's a non-fiction book to get me into heavier reading.
me, trying to get through this book: YES, migraine. How exciting. ... it's all samey after a while. Yaaay, migraine.... Ugh, I don't care anymore. Go away.
Don't get me wrong, it's a well-written book that doesn't mince its medical words (though how any non-medical background person perseveres through this book, I don't know). There's just a lack of real synthesis and differential that makes long description feel bogged down. Can't wait to finish this, to be honest.
YES. It's over.
Ran out of Vonnegut books and not quite ready for another audio-book (still reading Lovecraft compilation; rest in peace, me), so here's a non-fiction book to get me into heavier reading.
me, trying to get through this book: YES, migraine. How exciting. ... it's all samey after a while. Yaaay, migraine.... Ugh, I don't care anymore. Go away.
Don't get me wrong, it's a well-written book that doesn't mince its medical words (though how any non-medical background person perseveres through this book, I don't know). There's just a lack of real synthesis and differential that makes long description feel bogged down. Can't wait to finish this, to be honest.
YES. It's over.
6petricor
05. Collected Ghost Stories by M R James -
Started this because Migraine was dragging.
Canon Alberic's Scrap-book - ★★★
Lost Hearts - ★★★★
The Mezzotint - ★★★★
The Ash-Tree - ★★★
Number 13 - ★★★
Count Magnus - ★★
Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad - ★★★★
I'm loving the notes that contextualise obscurer references for me in this (Oxford) edition.
Started this because Migraine was dragging.
Canon Alberic's Scrap-book - ★★★
Lost Hearts - ★★★★
The Mezzotint - ★★★★
The Ash-Tree - ★★★
Number 13 - ★★★
Count Magnus - ★★
Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad - ★★★★
I'm loving the notes that contextualise obscurer references for me in this (Oxford) edition.
7petricor
06. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 14th October - ★★★★
I mean, really, what else can I add but po-tee-weet or so it goes?
I remember the book being larger when I was in school and totally bypassed reading it, but maybe it had intros and commentaries tacked onto it. Wasn't expecting to finish the book in two days.
Somehow, even though this was on my school read list eons ago, and I knew it was about war, I totally ignored any thematic analysis of the novel, so I was pretty psyched to have a eureka moment early on in the book when it occurred to me Billy Pilgrim's time travel was his way of describing PTSD. The moments of hypervigilance, the triggers (which later on become apparent, like the colored stripes of a wedding tent or the ringing of the doorbell), the "unstuckness" (aka flashbacks / reliving), and the nightmares. I think the twisting of these symptoms into sci-fi is incredible, because it really sells how absolutely real and terrifying and hopeless those relived flashbacks are for people. Kind of like Vonnegut's later book, Timequake, but it's not happening to everyone, it's happening to Billy Pilgrim.
One thing I'd love to fix is correction of Irving's propaganda machine numbers of the death toll (it wasn't that high).
That Billy Pilgrim self-medicated his PTSD through sci-fi is simultaneously sad and beautiful.
“How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”
“All this happened, more or less.”
“There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.”
“It was very exciting for her, taking his dignity away in the name of love.”
“The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's total population will double to 7,000,000,000 before the year 2000.
I suppose they will all want dignity, I said.”
“Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.”
I mean, really, what else can I add but po-tee-weet or so it goes?
I remember the book being larger when I was in school and totally bypassed reading it, but maybe it had intros and commentaries tacked onto it. Wasn't expecting to finish the book in two days.
Somehow, even though this was on my school read list eons ago, and I knew it was about war, I totally ignored any thematic analysis of the novel, so I was pretty psyched to have a eureka moment early on in the book when it occurred to me Billy Pilgrim's time travel was his way of describing PTSD. The moments of hypervigilance, the triggers (which later on become apparent, like the colored stripes of a wedding tent or the ringing of the doorbell), the "unstuckness" (aka flashbacks / reliving), and the nightmares. I think the twisting of these symptoms into sci-fi is incredible, because it really sells how absolutely real and terrifying and hopeless those relived flashbacks are for people. Kind of like Vonnegut's later book, Timequake, but it's not happening to everyone, it's happening to Billy Pilgrim.
One thing I'd love to fix is correction of Irving's propaganda machine numbers of the death toll (it wasn't that high).
That Billy Pilgrim self-medicated his PTSD through sci-fi is simultaneously sad and beautiful.
“How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”
“All this happened, more or less.”
“There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.”
“It was very exciting for her, taking his dignity away in the name of love.”
“The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's total population will double to 7,000,000,000 before the year 2000.
I suppose they will all want dignity, I said.”
“Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.”
8petricor
07. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 19th October - ★★★★
So far, it's hilarious. I like the drawings, too. The tombstone one of "He Tried" is exactly my kind of humor.
Reached the end. Really enjoyed this. The meta-fiction bit toward the end was icing on the cake. This is probably right between 4 and 5. I should probably expand to half stars, but I won't do so right now.
“I couldn't help wondering if that was what God put me on Earth for--to find out how much a man could take without breaking.”
“Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.”
"Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done. If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.”
“People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of their lives to improve. They lived in ugly places where there were only ugly things to do. They didn't own doodley-squat, so they couldn't improve their surroundings. so they did their best to make their insides beautiful instead.”
“Seems like the only kind of job an American can get these days is committing suicide in some way.”
“Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead.”
“What is the purpose of life?...To be the eyes and ears and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool!”
“Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe.”
So far, it's hilarious. I like the drawings, too. The tombstone one of "He Tried" is exactly my kind of humor.
Reached the end. Really enjoyed this. The meta-fiction bit toward the end was icing on the cake. This is probably right between 4 and 5. I should probably expand to half stars, but I won't do so right now.
“I couldn't help wondering if that was what God put me on Earth for--to find out how much a man could take without breaking.”
“Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.”
"Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done. If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.”
“People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of their lives to improve. They lived in ugly places where there were only ugly things to do. They didn't own doodley-squat, so they couldn't improve their surroundings. so they did their best to make their insides beautiful instead.”
“Seems like the only kind of job an American can get these days is committing suicide in some way.”
“Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead.”
“What is the purpose of life?...To be the eyes and ears and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool!”
“Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe.”
9petricor
08. Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 23rd October - ★★
Started the audio-book. I feel like this one is going to be a struggle. Having read seven Vonnegut books earlier, I find this one lacking in Vonnegut's style and wit. It's fairly dry and boring so far.
“Anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave."
.. also.. TAKARU.
It was indeed an epic struggle. I zoned out so many times. Don't ask me what really happened.
Started the audio-book. I feel like this one is going to be a struggle. Having read seven Vonnegut books earlier, I find this one lacking in Vonnegut's style and wit. It's fairly dry and boring so far.
“Anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave."
.. also.. TAKARU.
It was indeed an epic struggle. I zoned out so many times. Don't ask me what really happened.
10petricor
09. Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 29th October - ★★★★
The title seems fitting for this time of the year.
“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”
“Being an American means never having to say you're sorry.”
The book about humans as germ hotels, the Hiroshima bombing, and a prison break. Good stuff.
The title seems fitting for this time of the year.
“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”
“Being an American means never having to say you're sorry.”
The book about humans as germ hotels, the Hiroshima bombing, and a prison break. Good stuff.
11petricor
10. Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 24th November - ★★★★★
Took a wee bit of a hiatus from reading due to vacation and other things.
"We are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful who we pretend to be."
The last page is a sucker punch of an ending. One of my favorites from Vonnegut.
Took a wee bit of a hiatus from reading due to vacation and other things.
"We are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful who we pretend to be."
The last page is a sucker punch of an ending. One of my favorites from Vonnegut.
12petricor
11. God Bless You Mr Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 15th December - ★★★★
Or pearls before swine.
Or how to stop worrying and accept uselessness.
" “You're the man who stands on the street corner with a roll of toilet paper, and written on each square are the words, 'I love you.' And each passer-by, no matter who, gets a square all his or her own. I don't want my square of toilet paper.'
I didn't realize it was toilet paper.” "
---
“It was a perfectly good word – until Eliot got hold of it. It’s spoiled for me now. Eliot did to the word love what the Russians did to the word democracy. If Eliot is going to love everybody, no matter what they are, no matter what they do, then those of us who love particular people for particular reasons had better find ourselves a new word.’ He looked up at an oil painting of his deceased wife. ‘For instance – I loved her more than I loved our garbage collector, which makes me guilty of the most unspeakable of modern crimes: Dis-crimi-nay-tion.”
---
“Poverty is a relatively mild disease for even a very flimsy American soul, but uselessness will kill strong and weak souls alike, and kill every time.”
---
“And Samuel bought newspapers, and preachers, too. He gave them this simple lesson to teach, and they taught it well: Anybody who thought that the United States of America was supposed to be a Utopia was a piggy, lazy, God-damned fool. Samuel thundered that no American factory hand was worth more than eighty cents a day. And yet he could be thankful for the opportunity to pay a hundred thousand dollars or more for a painting by an Italian three centuries dead. And he capped this insult by giving paintings to museums for the spiritual elevation of the poor. The museums were closed on Sundays.”
---
"He was the best looking man in town, a cross, somebody once said, between Cary Grant and a German shepherd.”
---
“Well...what you did in Rosewater County was far from insane. It was quite possibly the most important social experiment of our time, for it dealt on a very small scale with a problem whose queasy horrors will eventually be made world-wide by the sophistication of machines. The problem is this: How to love people who have no use?"
Or pearls before swine.
Or how to stop worrying and accept uselessness.
" “You're the man who stands on the street corner with a roll of toilet paper, and written on each square are the words, 'I love you.' And each passer-by, no matter who, gets a square all his or her own. I don't want my square of toilet paper.'
I didn't realize it was toilet paper.” "
---
“It was a perfectly good word – until Eliot got hold of it. It’s spoiled for me now. Eliot did to the word love what the Russians did to the word democracy. If Eliot is going to love everybody, no matter what they are, no matter what they do, then those of us who love particular people for particular reasons had better find ourselves a new word.’ He looked up at an oil painting of his deceased wife. ‘For instance – I loved her more than I loved our garbage collector, which makes me guilty of the most unspeakable of modern crimes: Dis-crimi-nay-tion.”
---
“Poverty is a relatively mild disease for even a very flimsy American soul, but uselessness will kill strong and weak souls alike, and kill every time.”
---
“And Samuel bought newspapers, and preachers, too. He gave them this simple lesson to teach, and they taught it well: Anybody who thought that the United States of America was supposed to be a Utopia was a piggy, lazy, God-damned fool. Samuel thundered that no American factory hand was worth more than eighty cents a day. And yet he could be thankful for the opportunity to pay a hundred thousand dollars or more for a painting by an Italian three centuries dead. And he capped this insult by giving paintings to museums for the spiritual elevation of the poor. The museums were closed on Sundays.”
---
"He was the best looking man in town, a cross, somebody once said, between Cary Grant and a German shepherd.”
---
“Well...what you did in Rosewater County was far from insane. It was quite possibly the most important social experiment of our time, for it dealt on a very small scale with a problem whose queasy horrors will eventually be made world-wide by the sophistication of machines. The problem is this: How to love people who have no use?"
13petricor
12. Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 23rd December - ★★★
Hasn't particularly gripped me like the other books. Might be the weakest after Player Piano. I'll see. It definitely picked up in the 2nd half and kept me hooked, but there was just some usual Vonnegut magic missing. Certainly not the worst of his books though. I enjoyed the punchline ending.
“That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.”
“You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages--they haven't ended yet.”
“I concluded that the best thing for me and for those around me was to want nothing, to be enthusiastic about nothing, to be as unmotivated as possible, in fact, so that I would never again hurt anyone.”
“If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.”
Hasn't particularly gripped me like the other books. Might be the weakest after Player Piano. I'll see. It definitely picked up in the 2nd half and kept me hooked, but there was just some usual Vonnegut magic missing. Certainly not the worst of his books though. I enjoyed the punchline ending.
“That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.”
“You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages--they haven't ended yet.”
“I concluded that the best thing for me and for those around me was to want nothing, to be enthusiastic about nothing, to be as unmotivated as possible, in fact, so that I would never again hurt anyone.”
“If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.”
14petricor
13. Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 28th January 2022 - ★★★★
Really got tired in January and this took ages to read despite it being good Vonnegut.
"Now It's Women's Turn"
"Thank you, Meat."
I was close to guessing what was in Karabekian's potato barn. Surprised there was no mention of the convention he attended in Breakfast of Champions as a throwback, but so it goes.
Really got tired in January and this took ages to read despite it being good Vonnegut.
"Now It's Women's Turn"
"Thank you, Meat."
I was close to guessing what was in Karabekian's potato barn. Surprised there was no mention of the convention he attended in Breakfast of Champions as a throwback, but so it goes.
15petricor
The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai - finished 4th February - ★★★★★
The stream of consciousness sentences welcomed me home. Reading the POVs of Valuska and Mr Eszter was gripping. More bleak than I was expecting. A powerhouse of crushing doom.
The stream of consciousness sentences welcomed me home. Reading the POVs of Valuska and Mr Eszter was gripping. More bleak than I was expecting. A powerhouse of crushing doom.
16rocketjk
>15 petricor: "A powerhouse of crushing doom."
Now there's a phrase you don't see every day, but one I will remember, I think. The book looks great, too. I also enjoy the sort of stream of consciousness narrative that you find welcoming. Cheers!
Now there's a phrase you don't see every day, but one I will remember, I think. The book looks great, too. I also enjoy the sort of stream of consciousness narrative that you find welcoming. Cheers!
17petricor
>16 rocketjk: Thank you, Jerry! I delved into the foray of more challenging texts (compared with the simpler prose of Vonnegut), so Krasznahorkai left me a little flabberghasted and I tried to whip some words up together. My brevity doesn't do his words justice. I didn't think I'd be able to tolerate the stream of consciousness style much from being a novice reader, but it was welcoming and akin to my own thoughts, which can go from point A to P back to C in the span of a "sentence". Are there any stream of consciousness books you'd recommend?
18petricor
Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut - finished 9th February - ☆☆
On par with Player Piano, a disappointment compared to his other novels. Not compelling.
I also finally figured out Vonnegut's women characters appear modelled on his mother, those kind of defiant, other-worldly suicidal tendency waifs.
Need to find the quote on beauty and put it here. Can't find it. A shame.
"We are here for no purpose, unless we can invent one. Of that I am sure. The human condition in an exploding universe would not have been altered one iota if, rather than live as I have, I had done nothing but carry a rubber ice-cream cone from closet to closet for sixty years."
Also, ting a ling makes an appearance.
- - -
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka - finished 10th February - ☆☆☆☆
Man becomes the Other and gets abandoned by his family. Succinct yet effective portrayal of gradual abandonment. The scariest notion here is Gregor's prior achievements as a human being are erased because no one can see past his being an insect, and therefore, no one can see any hope of his recovering. It is scary to think how fragile past accomplishments are in days of modern efficiency and quota striving. One minute you're the breadwinner. Blink. The next minute arresting depression and conscription to being less than human.
On par with Player Piano, a disappointment compared to his other novels. Not compelling.
I also finally figured out Vonnegut's women characters appear modelled on his mother, those kind of defiant, other-worldly suicidal tendency waifs.
Need to find the quote on beauty and put it here. Can't find it. A shame.
"We are here for no purpose, unless we can invent one. Of that I am sure. The human condition in an exploding universe would not have been altered one iota if, rather than live as I have, I had done nothing but carry a rubber ice-cream cone from closet to closet for sixty years."
Also, ting a ling makes an appearance.
- - -
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka - finished 10th February - ☆☆☆☆
Man becomes the Other and gets abandoned by his family. Succinct yet effective portrayal of gradual abandonment. The scariest notion here is Gregor's prior achievements as a human being are erased because no one can see past his being an insect, and therefore, no one can see any hope of his recovering. It is scary to think how fragile past accomplishments are in days of modern efficiency and quota striving. One minute you're the breadwinner. Blink. The next minute arresting depression and conscription to being less than human.
19petricor
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon - finished 15th February - ☆☆☆
I have to admit that by the time the Trystero play finished, I wasn't really enamoured with the book as I was at the beginning. I thought the play would be a sideshow and it turned into the main attraction with the Trystero conspiracy paranoia, which made the rest of the book drag. Oedipa was interesting and I liked her obvious (by way of the men around her dying, eloping, or going bananas) emancipation from the patriarchy around her, but I found the ending a cop out.
- - -
Faust: A Tragedy in Two Parts by Goethe (translated by John R Williams) -
Yeah, I'm totally counting Faust Part I and Part II as two separate entities. Oh wait, I technically can't because one book. Bah, humbug.
Reading the translation by John Williams because I can't find the translation by Macintyre (American, from New Directions).
Faust I : ☆☆☆
Best parts were at the beginning, easy 4 star material, with Mephistopheles being introduced as a black poodle. It seemed like Faust became disillusioned with Mephistopheles very soon after he was separated from Gretchen. And was it just my translation or did events for Gretchen occur indirectly with reference made to them in a line or two near the end? I know Faust tried to convince Gretchen to use a sleeping potion on her mother, but I cannot for the life of me, remember reading when that occurred or that they consummated their relationship until her brother became upset and called her a whore and got himself killed, but I kind of assumed just Gretchen cavorting around with Faust would have been enough to stir gossip in the townspeople...? Anyway, I felt like I didn't really see any spectacular display of Mephistopheles's purported power. It was just Faust falling in love with Gretchen .. and we never found out if she looked ugly and it was just his drinking the witch's brew which made him fall deeply in love or if it was beyond Mephistopheles's attempted corruption of Faust. .. maybe Part II will be better.
I have to admit that by the time the Trystero play finished, I wasn't really enamoured with the book as I was at the beginning. I thought the play would be a sideshow and it turned into the main attraction with the Trystero conspiracy paranoia, which made the rest of the book drag. Oedipa was interesting and I liked her obvious (by way of the men around her dying, eloping, or going bananas) emancipation from the patriarchy around her, but I found the ending a cop out.
- - -
Faust: A Tragedy in Two Parts by Goethe (translated by John R Williams) -
Yeah, I'm totally counting Faust Part I and Part II as two separate entities. Oh wait, I technically can't because one book. Bah, humbug.
Reading the translation by John Williams because I can't find the translation by Macintyre (American, from New Directions).
Faust I : ☆☆☆
Best parts were at the beginning, easy 4 star material, with Mephistopheles being introduced as a black poodle. It seemed like Faust became disillusioned with Mephistopheles very soon after he was separated from Gretchen. And was it just my translation or did events for Gretchen occur indirectly with reference made to them in a line or two near the end? I know Faust tried to convince Gretchen to use a sleeping potion on her mother, but I cannot for the life of me, remember reading when that occurred or that they consummated their relationship until her brother became upset and called her a whore and got himself killed, but I kind of assumed just Gretchen cavorting around with Faust would have been enough to stir gossip in the townspeople...? Anyway, I felt like I didn't really see any spectacular display of Mephistopheles's purported power. It was just Faust falling in love with Gretchen .. and we never found out if she looked ugly and it was just his drinking the witch's brew which made him fall deeply in love or if it was beyond Mephistopheles's attempted corruption of Faust. .. maybe Part II will be better.
20Retired-book-addict
>1 petricor: Well, don't worry about not having done a 50 Book Challenge. I signed on for one somewhere around 2007-8, and did not complete it. In fact, I drifted away from LT, coming back to add more books once in a great while. But the discipline of deciding to spend some time cataloguing the books cluttering the basement - I'm guessing somewhere around 3000 of them - and only reading ten or twenty every year, and now being retired I have no excuse to read more, I've kicked around the idea of doing this challenge. But I'm not so courageous and bold as you, since I have not yet committed to this.
In truth, this really isn't a matter of whether you really get to fifty - what constitutes fifty when the books include anything from 100 or so pages on up to 1500-page monsters - what matters is that you have something to spur you into getting out of your books what can be gotten only by reading them.
Good luck on the challenge!
In truth, this really isn't a matter of whether you really get to fifty - what constitutes fifty when the books include anything from 100 or so pages on up to 1500-page monsters - what matters is that you have something to spur you into getting out of your books what can be gotten only by reading them.
Good luck on the challenge!
21petricor
>20 Retired-book-addict: Hi, retired-book-addict! Three thousand books is an impressive horde! I just kind of assumed that people who've catalogued their thousands of books have read them all, too. Haha, I have no (internet) shame, so I have posted my challenge for all to see! I'm taking the easy route and choosing books which aren't necessarily mammoths in size.. Maybe, if you know you read 10-20 a year, your challenge could be a number a tad higher, like 25 or 30. So you feel like there's a challenge but it's manageable.
I find if I spend money on books, they tend to get read sooner or later. The last thing I want is all the books on my shelf not be to read and look like decoration pieces in the room.
Thank you! I'm enjoying it so far. Got a few Krasznahorkai books and nonfiction books I plan to get through after reading Faust. I start too many nonfiction books at once. Need to laser focus on one to get more out of it.
I find if I spend money on books, they tend to get read sooner or later. The last thing I want is all the books on my shelf not be to read and look like decoration pieces in the room.
Thank you! I'm enjoying it so far. Got a few Krasznahorkai books and nonfiction books I plan to get through after reading Faust. I start too many nonfiction books at once. Need to laser focus on one to get more out of it.
