Started a bilingual book club a few months ago to get myself reading more and for language practice, so I've been reading some stuff not my usual bag.
Watership Down: This book is good. I was not expecting much since it's ostensibly a children's book about rabbits, but there is a lot of great character work, and a lot of parallels drawn between this band of rabbits and a lot of greek mythology. I enjoyed the El-alrairah mythology sections a lot more than I suspected. I really appreciated how the book made these rabbits... well, sentient, but still with a rabbit-like intelligence (re: they dum), instead of the kind of talking animals you tend to get in Disney films. On top of that, these dipshit rabbits have a pretty rich mythology with them at the center of the universe, drawing a parallel between them and humanity's place in the universe. Thoroughly an enjoyable read.
That said, it is misogynist as hell. Only one female character who makes any decisions to speak of, and the Bechdel test spontaneously combusted as it got close to the novel. Interestingly, according to the book on rabbit behaviour that Adams used as a basis for how the rabbits acted, indicated that when rabbits leave to make a new warren (re: the entire plot of the first half of the book), it is usually dissatisfied female rabbits who leave to start the new home, not males, and the author just kinda went “Well whatever I'm going to have male rabbits do that instead.” Great. Still, my only real complaint with the book.
1Q84: Have been reading this on and off for the past year or so. Not finished, keep getting distracted (CIIIIIIV), but in the last third of the book he introduces a whole new PoV, and I only have a couple pages left but I have no idea how he will resolve all the lingering plot threads in such a small space. From what I hear from people who have finished the book, I should not expect much in that regard.
I enjoy Murakami quite a bit, but after reading more than one of his books it's pretty clear he is pretty formulaic. Fish out of water dude does something extraordinary, his destiny gets entangled with another point of view character's, weird shit happens. That said, I enjoyed the amount of work put into developing Aomame's and Kengo's relationship, despite the fact that neither of them come face to face until the very end of the novel (well OK there's a bunch of weird Murakami shit that happens but that barely counts). I'm less in love with Murakami than I was after, say, Kafka on the Shore (my first foray into his work), but he's still enjoyable.
Slaughterhouse 5: Re-read this for the book club. I wonder how much of my affection for this book stems from nostalgia, but whatever I still think it's good. Blah blah blah Vonnegut Vonnegut Vonnegut read it.
Three Cups of Tea: Not gonna lie, I only drafted up this post so I could
complain about organize my thoughts on this book. It is this month's book club discussion book, and Jesus H. Tittyfucking Christ is it tedious. For those of you who haven't heard of the book, it is billed as a book about a man who started building schools in poor Muslim villages in Pakistan in the mid-nineties. And it delivers on that, kind of. This is where the good points are, for sure. The parts that go into detail about the villages' customs and way of life, and the multiparagraph interludes about the history of the region are pretty enjoyable.
That's about all I have good to say about the novel, though. The bad... it is just so disgustingly self serving. It is a memoir co-written by the man himself, Greg Mortenson, and some reporter who probably did most of the writing. When I refer to the author, I'll refer to the reporter, but Mortenson I'll call out by name. The parts about Mortenson's family are just so gross, heaping praise upon praise onto his parents, painting them out to be Christlike saints, and there is frequent boasting about Mortenson's skill with languages, his personality, and, best of all, his humility. He has flaws, sure, but they're stupid things like always being late.
On top of that, the tone, pacing, and... subject matter of the book is borderline schitzophrenic, and I'm pretty sure this stems from many cynical decisions made by the author. First off, it is a young adult book. With that in mind, what interests me about the book (the history and culture of these regions in Pakistan) for better or worse won't actually interest the average 15 year old being made to read this for English class.
That I can accept. However, the way in which the author tries to reach the kids is just terrible. There is a lot of over dramatization of certain events, and a lot of focus and false tension given to things that doesn't work on anyone who is thinking even a little bit about the book at all. For instance, the first two chapters of the book are about him almost dying while climbing a mountain in Pakistan, which... just falls flat, because of course he lives (even if it wasn't nonfiction it's the first two chapters of the novel, come on), and it has nothing to do with the rest of the story from then on. Several chapters later, he getting kidnapped by the early actors in the Taliban in the region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, and while it was interesting to read about on its own, a lot of melodrama surrounded the narration. “Will he die? Will he ever get out alive? Will he ever see his wife and child again?” OF COURSE HE FUCKING WILL, HE CO-WROTE THE GODDAMN BOOK. The book tries to make it out to be some serial adventure novella but it just doesn't work because fucking logic. I can't find any reason for this nonsense except that it is supposed to be there to draw the interest of the teenage boys in the audience. But it comes off as exceptionally dumb, and there's more than a hint of the author talking down to his audience.
Similarly, there are many segments devoted to Mortenson's love life. In the first 8 chapters, while going back and forth from Pakistan 3 or 4 times, Mortenson starts dating this woman while in the US, gets dumped, acts melodramatic over it while back in Pakistan, and then is over it by the next time he returns to the US, and then we never see the woman again. A good 20 pages is probably devoted to this interlude, and it ends up never mattering! On top of it being trite, melodramatic and poorly written!
I spent too long wracking my brain on why they would include these bits. Is it there to contrast with when he meets his wife later on? Possibly, but honestly the book isn't well written enough for me to buy that forethought was given to that dynamic (besides, both women barely feature in as anything further than the object of Mortenson's affections). Is Mortenson just that much of a narcissist? Given the way the book talked about his family, that certainly plays a part into this. Then I realized, concurrently with the revelation of why so many sections of the book play up the dangerous situations he finds himself in, that it must be in there as a cynically thrown hook to engage the teenage girl part of the audience. And then I was disgusted, in part because of the cynicism that inevitably lies behind the decision, but also in part because it is shit like that that drove the book to the top of the NYT Best Sellers list.
Anyway, the book makes several decisions to alternately suck Mortenson's prostate and reach as wide an audience as possible that turn the memoir into a tonally, narratively, and organizationally chaotic mess. I frankly look forward to reading
Three Cups of Deceit afterward, the book that was written in response to the fabrications and outright lies the book is apparently filled with. If you had any inclination of picking the book up before, do yourself a favor and go read a history book on Pakistan instead. It will be simultaneously more enjoyable and more rewarding.
