50 in 365 update
Sooo I know I promised to read 50 books this year, and I AM well on my
way but have been lax on updating. Here are my most recent reads:
#11 Livia by Anthony Barrett -- a wonderful biography about Augustus Caesar's wife, Livia.
#12 Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges -- This book is on the favorite list of many literary-minded friends and I have to admit that I just don't see why it's so brilliant overall. Maybe I'm the one that's not so brilliant, sigh.
#13 The Game by A.S. Byatt -- It was just ok. Nothing of the brilliance that Possession had. Overall I felt like it was rather a let down. But I bought it second hand for about $2 so I suppose it evens out.
#14 Salem Falls -- Jodi Picoult -- Better by far than The Game but still, just OK. I picked it up at the airport in Oakland in a shop that had a terrible selection of books. She has done some work with Grub Street in the past so I tend to want to patronize authors connected with one of my favorite organizations. It's an easy read but the whole teen witchy thing felt cliched.
#15 The Witch of Portobello -- Paulo Cohelo who, according to the book flap, is one of the most beloved writers of our time (he is?). So I haven't read the Alchemist yet, don't sue me. At any rate, this book was also a fast-paced read but I did find that the ending rather fell flat for me as some great "literary" fiction has a tendency to do. Again, maybe I just don't have an overall affinity for the esoteric? What I liked about this book was the style--not a single bit of it was told from the POV of the main character but instead, through a series of interviews of everyone that knew her.
#16 The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay -- I really liked this book partially because it was about books and about a bookstore and because the characters are so strange and peculiar. Despite the oddness of the cast, the book is very accessible and reads quickly. Definitely recommend.
#17 The Collected Poems of Carl Sandburg -- Ahhh just plain wonderfulness. I often read poetry to Joe before we go to sleep at night. When you read poetry aloud to someone who isn't much of a reader, you realize that accessiblilty is of the utmost importance. I was struck by how many of his poems, now 100 years old in many cases are still so very relevant, fluid and modern even today.
I'm also halfway through Aldous Huxley's The Island, partway through Margaret Atwood's The Tent and sigh of sighs, only about 400 pages into War and Peace. I like the Peace portion a lot but the War portions tend to drag on for me. And I can't figure out how late 18th Russia had so many damn princes and princesses...they seem to be everywhere you turn around!
Comments
I guess Borges is considered brilliant since so many writers, particularly Latin American & European writers, cite him as a major influence (countless writers, really: from Octavio Paz and Fuentes to Foucault, Umberto Eco, WG Sebald among many others). He also was one of the first writers to really push the boundaries of genre in a very conscious way: his works are kind of fiction, kind of non-fiction essays, kind of sci-fi/fantasy, kind of treatises/pamphlets, kind of political, kind of religious, though we may be talking about a single work. Now, 20+ years after his death, that's not so unusual so it's hard to see how interesting it was at the time.
But. You're right: much of his writing is not what one could call easily accessible and many people accuse him of being hard to read (my friend, Jacques, an English Professor at Brown, was just saying something along these lines a while back).
I prefer his earlier short stories, the kind of stuff he was publishing in the New Yorker in the 60s and early 70s. (His story "Chapter and Verse" is one of the best short stories period.) Also, his poetry. Here is a really lovely one. You should practice your French, too: for some reason, I find Borges easier to read in French than English. Again, something else I've discussed with others about him (that he's easier to read in other languages). I don't read Spanish or I'd read him in the original...
Thanks for the Donna Tartt recommendation. I've had her book The Little Friend on my bookshelf for a year, unread (The Secret History was one of my favorites of my early 20s). I've got to pick that up and read it!