Going to be a brief one today. It's 6:20 in the morning. Around 11:30 we'll be heading to Pennsylvania for a graduation party.
I got Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle finished and analyzed to the best of my abilities (read the post here). Great book, but ultimately disappointing in Murakami's failure to explain or account for a good chunk of what happened. Especially given the long length. Not sure if the Chunkster Challenge is still running, since the site hasn't been updated since January. Which kind of sucks, because I crossed into Mor-book-ly Obese territory awhile ago. You have to read at least six books of 450 pages or more between March and November of 2009. I've read eight, and have a total of nine on my list. That includes An American Tragedy, which I've been dragging my feet through for I don't know how many months now.
But also on my list since the beginning has been Carlos Ruiz Zafron's The Angel's Game, which I just purchased last week. I know it's one of those "every book blogger's reading it" type of things, but it's something I would have read anyway. It's translated and has an interesting plot, setting, and narrative style/genre (Gothic fiction). Actually, it reminds me strongly of The Crimes of Paris so far (another "every book blogger's reading it" book - but again, I would have read it anyway) and I loved that one.
I also received Sanjay Bahadur's The Sound of Water in the mail yesterday, which will be released June 30th. It starts out with a quote from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land." I expect great things from this book.
I'll be starting "The Part About Fate," the third book of Roberto Bolaño's 2666, as part of the read-along I'm participating in. I finished "The Part About Amalfitano" early - here is that post.
So that's me for this week. So what's your reading going to be like?
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5 comments:
The whole Chunkster Challenge thing makes me kind of laugh too. Not very hard when you think about it. Irresistible doorstops just keep presenting themselves to me.
You are ahead of me in the Bolano (I have to get back on track), and we are at the same starting point for The Angel's Game. Can't wait to get into that escapist treat. And curious to see the comparison points with The Crimes of Paris that you bring up.
Today I am reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Happy reading!
You're much braver than I am with the chunksters this year! I've got of lot of thick, juicy books just sitting around gathering dust (incl. the Spanish version of "The Angel's Game"), but I'm really enjoying the 200 pages and under quick reads this year for some reason. Anyway, looking forward to your Bolaño updates!
Frances: The Crimes of Paris talked quite a lot about early twentieth century sensationalist crime fiction and had a similar dark urban Gothic/bohemian vibe to it. Plus, both books deal with the same time period. I'll definitely talk quite a bit about it in my review, because I love this type of thing.
Richard: I was actually able to decipher your post on Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat! I guess my Spanish hasn't backslid as badly as I thought. I really should get back to studying it - I can read all the books in the world, but being monolingual makes me feel so uneducated.
I'm glad you could figure out my remedial Spanish, E.L. Fay! From there, it's a just a short hop, skip and a jump to reading the real thing. :) Anyway, let me know if you ever need a translation of any of my monolingual reviews--I'm too lazy to make them all bilingual at this point, but I'd be happy to clarify things "upon request" if any Spanish-only review piques your interest. Cheers!
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