My teacher says I'm breaking books at an eighth grade level: book thread

[G.C.R]

from here

Ok sorry I have to stop going on about this damn Chaucer but how awesome is it? At school the only ones i ever read were the smutty ones which were amusing enough, but how come no one ever let me know the moral parables were really expansive and exciting? In the man of law's tale, which is basically about a woman who is so good and saintly that God intervenes like a magic genie whenever she's in trouble, shit like this happens (to a guy who is framing her for murder because she wont sleep with him)

A Britoun book, written with Evaungiles [gospels]
Was fet, and on this book he swoor anoon
She gilty was, and in the meene whiles
A hand hym smoot upon the nekke-boon
That doun he fil atones as a stoon
And both his eyen broste out of his face
In sighte of every body in that place.

It's like God is her own personal jealous boyfriend who just beats people up who aren't nice to her!

[peacocks]

Middlesex isn't as great as people say it is. Why did it win a pulitzer? I'm going to keep reading to find out but it is not good so far.

[Greg Nog]

I remember finding it kinda okay, then feeling instensely weirded out by this plot resolution that happens in the ending.  My guess for why it got the hype it did is that it was as bourgeois-friendly as anything Franzen ever wrote, plus had just enough nonthreatening genderqueerness to give touristic titillation?  Besides the fact that it's totally capably-written, I mean.

Also INCESSSSST

EDIT: Weird, I just went and found my immediate-post-reading it reaction on LPTJ, abd I seemed to be really into it at the time?  This is super-puzzling to me, as I remember very little of it now, and what I do remember I have problems with.  Curious.

[peacocks]

Yeah, it's okay. But then all over the back it is like "NEXT CLASSIC AMERICAN EPIC." And, is it capably written? The Virgin Suicides were wonderful but there isn't the same spark in this. I am 10 years older now though. I am really put off by Franzen, too. The excerpts I have read have been awful.

[nonotyet]

I have no recollection of having feelings either way for Middlesex. All I remember is that it took me a tremendously long time to read it and that is not generally a sign that I am in love with a book. I have had a copy of The Marriage Plot at home from the library for a week. I have not opened and will not open it because the library does this damn thing where when I request a bunch of stuff it sends me all of the books you can only keep for a week at once, and I put it aside in favor of Roger Ebert's memoir. 

[fishjim]

I am really put off by Franzen, too. The excerpts I have read have been awful.

At last, a fellow mind. You know chick lit? Franzen is dick lit.

[elpollodiablo]

I think you'll find the general opinion of Franzen around these parts is none too high.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

still think the virgin suicides is great. have no interest whatsoever in the marriage plot especially after hearing accounts from friends.

[Greg Nog]

I think you'll find the general opinion of Franzen around these parts is none too high.

I'm picturing this being said in the heavy silence of a dusty old saloon while the piano player quietly covers the keyboard and leaves the room.

[peacocks]

still think the virgin suicides is great. have no interest whatsoever in the marriage plot especially after hearing accounts from friends.

Yes, indeed. I listened to a Fresh Air interview with Eugenides and wasn't that intrigued but reading this solidified my disinterest.

[fishjim]

I think you'll find the general opinion of Franzen around these parts is none too high.

I'm picturing this being said in the heavy silence of a dusty old saloon while the piano player quietly covers the keyboard and leaves the room.

O me of little faith. I should have said, "At last, fellow minds." Of course LPTJ would back me up on this one.

[YojimboMonkey]

I just finished a pretty ripping cyberpunk noir recommended to me by a coworker, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan.

Unfortunately, I am now a couple of chapters into Dan Simmons' new one, Flashback, and holy fuck, he's gone Galt. It's a near-future dystopian detective novel in which liberals have destroyed America and various bits of turf are controlled by gangs, or by the Japanese, etc. I mean, I'm less than 60 pages into it and I already feel beat over the head by right-wing politics. Though I guess I'll struggle through, as I do like him as a writer and I'm hoping the detective story will eventually outweigh the bullshit.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

you guys

GEORGE SAUNDERS

you guys

[Greg Nog]

Does he have something new out, or are you just discovering him now?

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

i've read a few things of his in the new yorker and thought "oh that's nice" but never really investigated further, and i'm reading in persuasion nation and feeling pretty good about it

[Greg Nog]

JAWSOME

I believe I have repped for him on here before, usually by pointing to the "I CAN SPEAK!" story and strongly implying that it is the single greatest fictional work ever to be written about early-21st-century capitalism

[fishjim]

I am so psyched to read this!

WILDWOOD by Colin Meloy, illustrated by Carson Ellis

Saw it in the "Briefly Noted" book shorts of the Dec 5 New Yorker. No doubt Colin got the bump because his sister's the fiction writer & TNY contributor Maile Meloy, but whatever. I bet his book's awesome.

[mixed cats]

I just finished a pretty ripping cyberpunk noir recommended to me by a coworker, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan.

Hey I read that. The whole "sleeves" thing was squicky. SQUICKY.


I just finished Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay for my book club. It's based around Occupied France and the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, a little girl who manages to escape, and a modern day journalist researching the event and discovering connections to her family. And other stuff.
It reminded me of my teenage visit to the Holocaust Museum. And ugly crying.

[elpollodiablo]

My initial response was "fuck a book by Colin Meloy" by the illustrations are pretty cool

Still Colin Meloy can go suck an egg

[davy]

I'm reading the Martin Cruz Smith novel about a murder mystery at Chernobyl. Wolves Eat Dogs. I never finished Gorky Park when I started it last year, but this one I'm digging. Maybe I'll finally be able to finish a mystery novel!

[fishjim]

My initial response was "fuck a book by Colin Meloy" by the illustrations are pretty cool

Still Colin Meloy can go suck an egg

OK, sure, he has his precious moments, but there's been precious few in the last couple albums.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

but also his book about let it be is ultra-terrible, so

[fishjim]

Ah, well, you got me there. Haven't read it, but I've flipped through it. And yeah, it looked terrible.

I think maybe he's not the discursive type.

[nonotyet]

You guys.
I watched America's Next Top Model All-Stars this season, and it was a total trainwreck*, like moreso than any other season of possibly anything ever, but it came to my attention that Tyra Banks wrote a book. it is called Modelland. There was a motion editorial for the book. It sounds so awful that I do not think it was ghostwritten.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwsgu_Dccvo
tell me not to read this book, internet. Please. I am scared for my own safety.

*they posed in giant bowls of Greek salad

[fishjim]

I'm reading the Martin Cruz Smith novel about a murder mystery at Chernobyl. Wolves Eat Dogs. I never finished Gorky Park when I started it last year, but this one I'm digging. Maybe I'll finally be able to finish a mystery novel!

Have you tried Ross Macdonald? He's the only serial mystery writer who nails it every time for me.