decemberthirty | (no subject)

I finished Summerland last night. What a great read. Just pure fun from start to finish. Chabon's writing was great, as always, and it was interesting to see him try something so different from his other books. He did an amazing job with his young characters. They really seemed to think and talk like kids. I'm always impressed by that kind of thing, because it's something that I struggle with a lot in my own writing. That child-voice does not come very naturally to me. I also liked the book because, while it is certainly in the tradition of other young adult fantasy works (the quest, the motley band of characters, the battle between good and evil...), it's a lot more lighthearted than things like Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, or LeGuin's Earthsea books. This is not to say that Summerland is better than those other books; I just liked the way Chabon took the same elements as those authors and, by using a totally different tone, created a book that feels very different. I don't think I'm doing a very good job of explaining myself.

Comparing Summerland to other books in its genre made my realize that it's once again getting to be time to read the Earthsea books, but I wanted to read something for adults before I dove right into it. So I started The Centaur by John Updike. I haven't read a whole lot of Updike beyond the Rabbit series and various short stories, but I thought the Rabbit books were really phenomenal and have been meaning to read more of him for some time. The Centaur was selected rather at random, just because I happened to find it in used bookstore a month or so ago. I am not really far enough along at this point to say much about it, aside from the fact that I find it strangely entrancing...