Reading Wednesday
May. 7th, 2014 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhWhat did you just finish?
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. A horror novel about a vampire-like creature who feeds on children, and a woman who can find anything lost. I did like the explanation of how "magic" works in this world, and I liked many of the minor characters, and the climactic scene was genuinely tense and exciting. And yet overall, I didn't like it quite as much as I've liked other novels by Hill. I just didn't feel emotionally engaged with the main character, or with the story. I still recommend it, though, if you're into horror! It's far from a bad book, even if I wish it had been better.
The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye. OH GOD FINALLY. For the final hundred or so pages, the book morphs into an incredibly detailed account of the attack on the British embassy in Kabul by unpaid, discontented Afghani soldiers (Ash plays no part in this, as he spends the entire time locked in a closet by someone trying to protect him from himself). The book even includes a map of the embassy, so you can follow along with who is where, like some sort of military textbook. Because that goes so well with the previous eleven hundred pages. Also there is lots of weird nearly-religious praising of soldiery ideals: The Guides laughed again; and their laughter made Wally's heart lift with pride and brought a lump to his throat as he grinned back at them with an admiration and affection that was too deep for words. Yes, life would have been worth living if only to have served and fought with men like these. It had been a privilege to command them – an enormous privilege: and it would be an even greater one to die with them. They were the salt of the earth. They were the Guides. His throat tightened as he looked at them, and he was aware again of a hard lump in it, but his eyes were very bright as he reached for his sabre, and swallowing painfully to clear that constriction, he said almost gaily: "Are we ready? Good. Then open the doors –" And then he dies (though not without quoting the Aeneid, because I guess all 19th century Irish dudes are into that sort of thing). Sorry to spoil it for you, but uh, I'm just trying to spare you all from reading it.
Anyway, this event convinces Ash and Anjuli that they're too good for the rest of humanity and so they should just go live by themselves in some valley in the Himalayas (the fact that the Himalayas are, you know, already populated does not appear to present a problem):
"Where do you go?"
"We go to find our Kingdom, Sirdar-Sahib. Our own Dur Khaima – our far pavilions."
"Your...?"
The Sirdar looked so bewildered that Ash's mouth twitched in the shadow of a smile as he said: "Let me say, rather, that we hope to find it. We go in search of some place where we may live and work in peace, and where men do not kill or persecute each other for sport or at the bidding of Governments – or because others do not think or speak or pray as they do, or have skins of a different colour. – do not know if there is such a place, or, if we find it, whether it will prove too hard to live there, building our own house and growing our own food and raising and teaching our children. Yet others without number have done so in the past. Countless others, since the day that out First Parents were expelled from Eden. And what others have done, we can do."
And then the book ends abruptly, without revealing if they found their ~kingdom~. On the other hand, then the books ends! I don't have to read it anymore! I AM DONE THANK GOD.
Gifted by Nikita Lalwani. A novel about a gifted girl with driven parents. The pressure starts young, when Rumi is identified as "gifted" by her first teacher; her parents' response to this builds up from a suggestion that she join MENSA, into taking her A and O levels early, and eventually attending college (Cambridge, even) at 15. Rumi's life centers around constant studying, to the exclusion of all else, particularly any sort of normal social life or friends. At one point she even drops out of high school entirely to devote all of her time to studying and preparing. Also, she only ever seems to study math– I feel like surely one must know at least a little on other topics to get into a college, but perhaps the obsession with broad-based knowledge is uniquely American– and she seems to be appallingly ignorant on all other subjects. Since obviously this is not a stable condition, the pressure builds up and up over the book until it all crashes down.
Rumi's parents are Indian immigrants, and their isolation from the society around them (particularly her father's almost neurotic mistrust and need to prove himself) contribute to the tense atmosphere and obsession with academic success. I really liked this book as a portrayal of the intensity and isolation of a child prodigy's life, and how excelling at one thing often involves sacrificing all other parts of life.
I actually started the book several years ago, when I was living in Cardiff (it's set there), but I only had it as an audiobook then. The language is really lovely, but for some reason– either it's not a good fit for audio or I just wasn't in the mood listening– I couldn't get into it as an audiobook; I kept having to re-listen to sections because I'd zoned out. And yet, I liked it. I ended up putting it aside until I had a hard copy to read, which apparently took about four years. But now that I've read it, I really loved it. Highly recommended.
What are you currently reading?
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is making me SO HAPPY after The Far Pavilions. (Although, God, what an awful title. Someone asked me what I was reading and I was almost embarrassed to say.)
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. A horror novel about a vampire-like creature who feeds on children, and a woman who can find anything lost. I did like the explanation of how "magic" works in this world, and I liked many of the minor characters, and the climactic scene was genuinely tense and exciting. And yet overall, I didn't like it quite as much as I've liked other novels by Hill. I just didn't feel emotionally engaged with the main character, or with the story. I still recommend it, though, if you're into horror! It's far from a bad book, even if I wish it had been better.
The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye. OH GOD FINALLY. For the final hundred or so pages, the book morphs into an incredibly detailed account of the attack on the British embassy in Kabul by unpaid, discontented Afghani soldiers (Ash plays no part in this, as he spends the entire time locked in a closet by someone trying to protect him from himself). The book even includes a map of the embassy, so you can follow along with who is where, like some sort of military textbook. Because that goes so well with the previous eleven hundred pages. Also there is lots of weird nearly-religious praising of soldiery ideals: The Guides laughed again; and their laughter made Wally's heart lift with pride and brought a lump to his throat as he grinned back at them with an admiration and affection that was too deep for words. Yes, life would have been worth living if only to have served and fought with men like these. It had been a privilege to command them – an enormous privilege: and it would be an even greater one to die with them. They were the salt of the earth. They were the Guides. His throat tightened as he looked at them, and he was aware again of a hard lump in it, but his eyes were very bright as he reached for his sabre, and swallowing painfully to clear that constriction, he said almost gaily: "Are we ready? Good. Then open the doors –" And then he dies (though not without quoting the Aeneid, because I guess all 19th century Irish dudes are into that sort of thing). Sorry to spoil it for you, but uh, I'm just trying to spare you all from reading it.
Anyway, this event convinces Ash and Anjuli that they're too good for the rest of humanity and so they should just go live by themselves in some valley in the Himalayas (the fact that the Himalayas are, you know, already populated does not appear to present a problem):
"Where do you go?"
"We go to find our Kingdom, Sirdar-Sahib. Our own Dur Khaima – our far pavilions."
"Your...?"
The Sirdar looked so bewildered that Ash's mouth twitched in the shadow of a smile as he said: "Let me say, rather, that we hope to find it. We go in search of some place where we may live and work in peace, and where men do not kill or persecute each other for sport or at the bidding of Governments – or because others do not think or speak or pray as they do, or have skins of a different colour. – do not know if there is such a place, or, if we find it, whether it will prove too hard to live there, building our own house and growing our own food and raising and teaching our children. Yet others without number have done so in the past. Countless others, since the day that out First Parents were expelled from Eden. And what others have done, we can do."
And then the book ends abruptly, without revealing if they found their ~kingdom~. On the other hand, then the books ends! I don't have to read it anymore! I AM DONE THANK GOD.
Gifted by Nikita Lalwani. A novel about a gifted girl with driven parents. The pressure starts young, when Rumi is identified as "gifted" by her first teacher; her parents' response to this builds up from a suggestion that she join MENSA, into taking her A and O levels early, and eventually attending college (Cambridge, even) at 15. Rumi's life centers around constant studying, to the exclusion of all else, particularly any sort of normal social life or friends. At one point she even drops out of high school entirely to devote all of her time to studying and preparing. Also, she only ever seems to study math– I feel like surely one must know at least a little on other topics to get into a college, but perhaps the obsession with broad-based knowledge is uniquely American– and she seems to be appallingly ignorant on all other subjects. Since obviously this is not a stable condition, the pressure builds up and up over the book until it all crashes down.
Rumi's parents are Indian immigrants, and their isolation from the society around them (particularly her father's almost neurotic mistrust and need to prove himself) contribute to the tense atmosphere and obsession with academic success. I really liked this book as a portrayal of the intensity and isolation of a child prodigy's life, and how excelling at one thing often involves sacrificing all other parts of life.
I actually started the book several years ago, when I was living in Cardiff (it's set there), but I only had it as an audiobook then. The language is really lovely, but for some reason– either it's not a good fit for audio or I just wasn't in the mood listening– I couldn't get into it as an audiobook; I kept having to re-listen to sections because I'd zoned out. And yet, I liked it. I ended up putting it aside until I had a hard copy to read, which apparently took about four years. But now that I've read it, I really loved it. Highly recommended.
What are you currently reading?
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is making me SO HAPPY after The Far Pavilions. (Although, God, what an awful title. Someone asked me what I was reading and I was almost embarrassed to say.)
