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Super-quick reading rundown
Aug. 31st, 2007 09:30 amToday marks the end of a banner week for me: the first week in the entire history of my academic career in which I have read every single word that was assigned to me for every single class that I attended. And all on time too! Unheard of! Anyhow, this means that I am now reading at a rate that is at least double the rate at which I was reading just a few weeks ago. This makes it rather difficult to keep as thorough a reading journal as the one I've been keeping, especially with all of the other new demands on my time. But I really like keeping the reading journal, and I find it really helpful to have the record of what I've read and what I thought. What to do? I don't know yet exactly how I'll resolve this dilemma, but for now I'm going to try to quickly sum up my reactions to my recent reading.
1. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan: Lovely. A little, beautiful gem of a book, a masterpiece of restraint. The only other McEwan I've read is Amsterdam, and I was decidedly unimpressed with that book--it seemed like a rather mean-spirited novel. I'm glad I didn't give up on McEwan, though, because this little story is rendered with such careful sensitivity and flawlessly controlled tone, such care for the characters, for their various hurts, and for the eventual failure of patience and understanding toward each other that only hurts them further. There's not a trace of the mean-spirited or over-clever about it. I chose this as my last bit of unassigned reading before grad school got underway in earnest, and I'm awfully glad I did.
2. Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald: Oof. This book is tough. The book seems to mirror its main character, Jacques Austerlitz: strange, erudite, impenetrable, cold. There are wonderful sentences, but they're buried in the middle of paragraphs that stretch on for fifty pages. (I'm not kidding. I'm halfway through the book at this point, and I think I've encountered maybe five indentations.) This books is not designed to be accessible or to draw the reader in; in fact, it seems to be quite the opposite. The first quarter of the book is devoted to Austerlitz's long monologue on the history of European architecture, and it is only after one has waded through this dreary passage that one is rewarded with the real substance of the book, the life story of Austerlitz. I'm totally unable to fathom why Sebald would set his book up in this way. Has anybody read this one? I'd love to know what any of you thought.
3. "Arcadia" by Tom Stoppard: Fantastic, fantastic! Oh, the waltzing at the end! Fantastic! Maybe it's just because it stands out in such contrast to Austerlitz, but I loved this. How not to love it? When it had me laughing out loud by the second page? It's just as witty as can be, and extremely well-researched and learned without being oppressive about it (take a note, Sebald!). I could swear I read this in college, although I cannot for the life of me remember what class I read it for. Was it 101? I can't imagine any other class where it would have been relevant... I find it weird that I can't remember that, but the play itself is excellent.
Thus far, I have only read bits and pieces for my South Asian fiction course: a speech by Nehru, an essay by Rushdie, a short story or two... None of those seem worth commenting on in any particular way, but I'll soon have novels for that class as well.
1. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan: Lovely. A little, beautiful gem of a book, a masterpiece of restraint. The only other McEwan I've read is Amsterdam, and I was decidedly unimpressed with that book--it seemed like a rather mean-spirited novel. I'm glad I didn't give up on McEwan, though, because this little story is rendered with such careful sensitivity and flawlessly controlled tone, such care for the characters, for their various hurts, and for the eventual failure of patience and understanding toward each other that only hurts them further. There's not a trace of the mean-spirited or over-clever about it. I chose this as my last bit of unassigned reading before grad school got underway in earnest, and I'm awfully glad I did.
2. Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald: Oof. This book is tough. The book seems to mirror its main character, Jacques Austerlitz: strange, erudite, impenetrable, cold. There are wonderful sentences, but they're buried in the middle of paragraphs that stretch on for fifty pages. (I'm not kidding. I'm halfway through the book at this point, and I think I've encountered maybe five indentations.) This books is not designed to be accessible or to draw the reader in; in fact, it seems to be quite the opposite. The first quarter of the book is devoted to Austerlitz's long monologue on the history of European architecture, and it is only after one has waded through this dreary passage that one is rewarded with the real substance of the book, the life story of Austerlitz. I'm totally unable to fathom why Sebald would set his book up in this way. Has anybody read this one? I'd love to know what any of you thought.
3. "Arcadia" by Tom Stoppard: Fantastic, fantastic! Oh, the waltzing at the end! Fantastic! Maybe it's just because it stands out in such contrast to Austerlitz, but I loved this. How not to love it? When it had me laughing out loud by the second page? It's just as witty as can be, and extremely well-researched and learned without being oppressive about it (take a note, Sebald!). I could swear I read this in college, although I cannot for the life of me remember what class I read it for. Was it 101? I can't imagine any other class where it would have been relevant... I find it weird that I can't remember that, but the play itself is excellent.
Thus far, I have only read bits and pieces for my South Asian fiction course: a speech by Nehru, an essay by Rushdie, a short story or two... None of those seem worth commenting on in any particular way, but I'll soon have novels for that class as well.
