Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Off the Shelf
I'm trying to read "The Naked and the Dead" right now. Unfortunately, there has been approximately zero nudity so far, unless you count someone's shirt flying up when their intestines get blown out, and a whole lot of the death part. I pride myself on never giving up on a book, but war novels are a real test for me, ever since I was totally disappointed in the seventh grade by the narrator not dying at the end of The Red Badge of Courage (I swear someone told me he did). I guess it's kind of tough for me to get invested in characters when I know they'll likely be bayoneted within twenty pages. Plus, I'm so not about gross stuff. I didn't even watch ER back when Clooney was still on it.
With a slightly lower body count were the lovely short stories by Lorrie Moore I plowed through a few weeks ago. At first I was afraid she was going to be one of those gimmicky, write-about-gay-midget-satanists-in-space kind of authors, but there was a good deal of carefully-observed truth to her stuff that had me hooked by the third story. And there's plenty of fun with words for the linguistic nerds, too. It's a recommend.
Also read a collection of short stories by Elizabeth Crane. Eh.
But my highlight of the past few months has to be the R.M. Koster novel I read, "The Prince." It wasn't as polished or as potent as his other work, and it did indulge in some very uncharacteristic grotesquerie, but it was still a really enjoyable bit of magical realism. Also, I thought, very insightful with regard to Latin American politics, although admittedly everything I know about Latin American politics comes from magical realism and Woody Allen's Bananas. But anyway, don't take my word for it, check it out at your local library!
I'm trying to read "The Naked and the Dead" right now. Unfortunately, there has been approximately zero nudity so far, unless you count someone's shirt flying up when their intestines get blown out, and a whole lot of the death part. I pride myself on never giving up on a book, but war novels are a real test for me, ever since I was totally disappointed in the seventh grade by the narrator not dying at the end of The Red Badge of Courage (I swear someone told me he did). I guess it's kind of tough for me to get invested in characters when I know they'll likely be bayoneted within twenty pages. Plus, I'm so not about gross stuff. I didn't even watch ER back when Clooney was still on it.
With a slightly lower body count were the lovely short stories by Lorrie Moore I plowed through a few weeks ago. At first I was afraid she was going to be one of those gimmicky, write-about-gay-midget-satanists-in-space kind of authors, but there was a good deal of carefully-observed truth to her stuff that had me hooked by the third story. And there's plenty of fun with words for the linguistic nerds, too. It's a recommend.
Also read a collection of short stories by Elizabeth Crane. Eh.
But my highlight of the past few months has to be the R.M. Koster novel I read, "The Prince." It wasn't as polished or as potent as his other work, and it did indulge in some very uncharacteristic grotesquerie, but it was still a really enjoyable bit of magical realism. Also, I thought, very insightful with regard to Latin American politics, although admittedly everything I know about Latin American politics comes from magical realism and Woody Allen's Bananas. But anyway, don't take my word for it, check it out at your local library!
