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Oct. 19th, 2003 08:55 amWell, I finished Real Time shortly after my last post. It was a strange book. Well written, but not very engaging. Chaudhuri also has written a series of novels called Freedom Song that won a couple awards... I'd be rather curious to read those and see if they create a different overall effect.
After finishing Real Time, I read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, the story of an intersexed individual who is raised as a girl, becomes aware of his condition as a teenager, and begins living as a male. Overall, I really enjoyed it. It wasn't a Great Work of Literature, but any time I read a 530 page book in just under a week, you know it's engrossing if nothing else. Eugenides did a great job of inhabiting his narrator, which is rather a feat, considering the narrator's unusual circumstances. While reading it, I was thinking that it was definitely one of the best books that I'd read in quite a while, until I remembered the fact that I recently read Everything Is Illuminated. Middlesex was neither as intellectually nor emotionally stimulating as that book, but was certainly worth reading nonetheless. I was impressed that Eugenides was able to create a story that was so thoroughly convincing about topic that is quite outside of most people's experience. In fact, he created three very convincing stories, if you consider not just Cal's own story, but that of his parents and grandparents as well. Yes, all in all a very good book. It makes me quite interested in reading The Virgin Suicides as well.
After finishing Real Time, I read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, the story of an intersexed individual who is raised as a girl, becomes aware of his condition as a teenager, and begins living as a male. Overall, I really enjoyed it. It wasn't a Great Work of Literature, but any time I read a 530 page book in just under a week, you know it's engrossing if nothing else. Eugenides did a great job of inhabiting his narrator, which is rather a feat, considering the narrator's unusual circumstances. While reading it, I was thinking that it was definitely one of the best books that I'd read in quite a while, until I remembered the fact that I recently read Everything Is Illuminated. Middlesex was neither as intellectually nor emotionally stimulating as that book, but was certainly worth reading nonetheless. I was impressed that Eugenides was able to create a story that was so thoroughly convincing about topic that is quite outside of most people's experience. In fact, he created three very convincing stories, if you consider not just Cal's own story, but that of his parents and grandparents as well. Yes, all in all a very good book. It makes me quite interested in reading The Virgin Suicides as well.
