A Quick "Reader"

As I mentioned in one of my last posts, I've spent the past few weeks trudging through The Robber Bride. With that behind me, I moved on to The Reader by Berhard Schlink, which actually felt like an easy, light read in comparison. Although the subject matter is by no means light, it felt refreshing to be able to get through a book in only a couple of hours, spread out over a few days (hence the poorly executed pun in the title of this post).

I had resisted reading this book ever since it was one of Oprah's Book Club picks. I gave in when the buzz over the
recent movie piqued my interest. The writing style is straightforward, almost sparse. At times this works, and the author is able to evoke rich images and scenes with only a few choice words. Equally often, however, the tone was so straightforward that it seemed to veer into the realm of reporting, and I found my eye skimming over long passages as if I were scanning a news article. Interestingly, the story not only deals with a trial, but the
author is a lawyer by training. I can't help but think that this impacted the writing- both intentionally and unintentionally.

Issues of reading and illiteracy play a key role in the story, and I think they're meant to be what sets this novel apart from other Holocaust literature. For me, the theme of reading took a backseat to other questions that were raised, such as who should bear the guilt and the responsibility for the relationship the narrator had with Hanna as a teenager. However, something kept me at a distance from these characters throughout the book, and this prevented me from caring about either of them enough to spend much time investigating these questions.

The Reader also called to mind another book that I mentioned here, School for Love by Olivia Manning. Though the books and characters are quite different, both deal with an adolescent boy's interactions with the Post-WWII adult world around him. What Manning does so well in her book is to capture the world as seen through her character's young eyes. In The Reader, Schlink's narrator looks back at his teenage self from various stages of this life. While perhaps a more complex literary maneuver, I think it was this decision that ultimately kept me from feeling any kind of connection with the characters. I'll still keep the film version of The Reader on my Netflix queue, though. I have a feeling this may be a case where I like the movie better than the book, and Kate Winslet really does seem perfect for the role of Hanna.

And for a few final, unrelated notes:
1) I know the picture of the book cover here is a bit generic, but it was in response to certain readers demands for more pictures!
2) Tonight Masterpiece Theater's Dickens series continues with an adaptation of The Old Curiosity Shop on PBS. I'll be watching.
3) I'm only about 20 pages into my latest book, but I'm already excited (and amused!) by it...more to come soon.

Purple ruffles for spring

Debuted my cute new shoes at work today. Ruffles are quickly becoming a Miss Bibliophile fashion theme. Now if only it would rain so that I can wear my new wellies....

Finally....

After three long weeks of plodding through it, I've finally finished my book club's latest pick, The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. It just took me forever to get through this book, and I'm not entirely sure why as it's not an extremely long or difficult read. At first I thought it might have to do with the author's pacing, but I think it came down to more of me lacking the motivation to read more than a handful of pages at a time. And it's not because the story was uninteresting- it was...or should have been, in theory. It deals with three middle aged women, former college classmates, and their mutual "frenemy" Zenia who has had a negative impact on each of their lives. After attending her funeral, they encounter her again, alive, and each have to revisit their pasts with her before a final confrontation. I think there's a lot of potentially interesting book club discussion material here, like issues of multiple names and identities, and the flawed relationships in the novel. But in the end, something about this book felt tired to me. Possibly the setting and time period (1950s-1990s Toronto) had something to do with it, but I suspect it had more to do with the fact that the characters and themes seemed like things I've seen before, although I can't put my finger on where or when. I'll be interested in hearing what the rest of the club thinks.

And in the meantime, onto my next book...Hurray!

You can't have a shelf full of Kindles

I recently heard that fiction is the most popular category of books downloaded for Amazon's Kindle, and within that, romance novels are the most popular genre. As a friend wisely pointed out, this is probably so people can read romance novels in public without being embarassed by the cheesy covers. The flip side of that is discussed in this NY Times article. My feelings about the Kindle are mostly neutral, but of all of the anti-Kindle articles I've read, this is the one that speaks to me the most.

Vampires...definitely not of the Twilight variety

I’ll admit that Let the Right On In by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist first peaked my interest because the story sounded like Twilight in reverse- girl vampire befriends the loner teenage boy next door. I saw the Swedish movie adaptation a couple of months ago and quickly knew that I wasn’t in Forks anymore. After finally reading the book, I can safely say that it is one of the creepiest, most disturbing novels I’ve ever read. Horror is not my most frequently read genre, but the few things I’ve read by Stephen King seem like childrens’ fairy tales in comparison to this book. As long as you have the stomach for it, Let the Right On In is worth reading, however, because Lindqvist’s writing is so interesting. It’s not just the vampires and mass murders that make this book so chilling; the suburban Stockholm setting and the dismal characters are portrayed in a way that casts a cold, depressing chill over literally everyone and everything in the book. Juxtaposed with the horrific details of the storyline are a handful of moments, usually conveyed with just a single sentence, that illuminate the tiny (usually very tiny) grains of humanity left within some very horrible characters. Even though this is definitely a horror novel, it has the potential to raise so many little questions and interpretations that I can easily imagine it yielding lots of discussion in some kind of Gothic lit class.