I'm generally a fan of contemporary Japanese fiction. I've read and liked a few of Ryu Murakami's novels, and Haruki Murakami is one of my very favorite authors. A few years ago, I read Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, and I generally liked that one, too. That said, Yoshimoto's The Lake is a total waste of time. The only novels I've read this year and actively disliked are Things Fall Apart and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The Lake is fluff fiction with some of the latter novel's annoying-as-hell preachiness. Generally, my rule is that if, 50 pages in, nothing interesting is going on, I can scrap it. This one was so short that I didn't. I figured something interesting was bound to happen. I was totally wrong.

The Lake is about a girl whose mother has recently died. She lives alone in a big city in Japan, and she's lonely. She meets the guy whose window faces her from across the street, and they begin dating. He moves in. She's not sure what it is, but there's something wrong with him. He's damaged in some way. He asks her to go with him to see two of his old friends who live near a lake, and she agrees to go. They arrive at a little cabin occupied by one nice guy and his bedridden sister. The friend puts his hand on his sister's head, and she speaks through him. Fine. So the couple goes back to the city. Long story short, it turns out that (spoiler!) the boyfriend had been kidnapped and brainwashed by a cult when he was a kid, and he has problems forming relationships. The End.

This book was a total waste of time. I read it quickly simply because I wanted it to be over. The translation is terrible, too. Here's an actual sentence:

Stacks of incomprehensible books about biochemistry and genetic engineering and so on would be stacked up next to him, their pages marked with Post-its.

Really? Mr. Translator, couldn't you have tried just a little harder?

I'm glad I didn't waste too much time on this one. I'll move on to something more interesting, though I'm not sure what that is, yet. Shouldn't be hard to find: I do work in a library, after all.

It took me a long time to read Everything that Rises Must Converge, but that's not because I didn't like it. Now that I have a job, I've been reading a lot less. I get up, go to work, come home, and watch bad TV. I've only been reading during my (very short) break at work and just before I go to bed. I'm glad I've gotten ahead in my quota. Also, it's too damn hot around here to read. The high today was 109. I know I said last winter that I'd rather it be 100 degrees outside than fifty, but 109 is just ridiculous. I'm working with window units here.

Anyway. The only Flannery O'Connor I remember reading before this was ye olde high school and college favorite, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," which, I guess, I liked well enough. I've never been one for southern lit in general, though I've always loved A Confederacy of Dunces, and I've grown to like Faulkner a lot. I enjoyed Tom Sawyer, though I don't have any interest in other Twain.

But O'Connor! She's fantastic! I have a new favorite short story writer. I'm not sure which of these short stories I like best: they're all really, really good, and they deserve a second (and third!) reading. I'm sitting here staring at the list of stories, trying to single one out, but I really can't, so I won't.

Everything that Rises Must Converge is O'Connor's last collection. She was still working on it when she died. She only published one other collection, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, so I might pick that up at the liberry. Where I work.

Speaking of the liberry, I've been thinking about writing a series of book reviews for their blog. This post would not be a good example of a review, though I've been considering looking into gearing my entries more toward the formal. We'll see if I can doff my laziness for a bit.

I don't even wanna talk about this one.

I hadn't read a DeLillo novel in quite a while - we're faaaar away from the glory days of the DeLillo Binge. While I was working on the Thesis Monster (which I still have to finish), I read most of his novels and realized that he's just writing the same novel over and over with different characters and settings. Once I saw that, I lost all interest in DeLillo and all interest in the Thesis Monster. Which is why I haven't worked on it in a while.

Here's the plot of every DeLillo novel I've read (except, maybe, of Underworld, which I didn't finish): A guy (always a guy: DeLillo writes Man Novels) experiences some sort of postmodern angst related in some way to the media. He runs away from his life or otherwise destroys it. Sometimes he attempts to return and is unsuccessful in reintegrating himself.

There. I've just told you the plot of Cosmopolis. And Americana, Great Jones Street, Mao II (the three novels included in the Thesis Monster), Libra, White Noise, Point Omega, Falling Man, and all the others I've read. That's right: all of them.

Really, Don DeLillo? I thought you were better than that. Or at least a bit more creative.

I still say I'll finish the Thesis Monster, and now I have a wee bit of incentive. Next August, I want to start Librarian School, which means another master's. Which also means I need to finish the one I'm "currently" working on. I only need thirty more pages, and I have until early April to do it. I need to get my shizz together.

I'm not sure I should count this one. The size of The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a bit daunting until you look inside. It's 533 thick (as in good-quality) pages. I was expecting it to take a while. But no. Near the end of the book, the author, Brian Selznik, mentions that it's only around 26,000 words, which is roughly half the length of The Great Gatsby, which is about the shortest a novel can be and still be called a novel. Below 50k, it's a novella. So The Invention of Hugo Cabret is, word-wise, a short novella.

But the words are only part of it. It's filled with beautiful pencil drawings - and even some photographs. It's a beautiful mix of the traditional and graphic novel, and I loved every minute of it, though I wish it was a lot longer.

 

 

 

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is about a young boy, Hugo, who lives in a train station in Paris. His father died, so he moved there with his uncle, but his uncle disappeared. Hugo is left all alone to perform his uncle's job of keeping all the clocks in the station wound and running correctly. Before his father, who was also a clock-maker, died, he had been working to repair an automaton he'd found, the origin of which no one seemed to know.

Hugo is determined to fix the automaton because he thinks it has a message for him: it's sitting at a desk, pen in hand, ready to start writing. He gets the parts for it by stealing from the toymaker in a stall nearby. Eventually, he gets caught, and things get interesting.

I really enjoyed this book. It's different. Martin Scorsese is directing a movie based on the novel, which I'd imagine would work out very well.