Soon thereafter, however, Fowler meets a 30-something American named Alden Pyle. Pyle, an idealist who believes in the theories of world democracy proposed by author York Harding, ostensibly works for the American economic office, though his actions are quiet suspect. Then Pyle falls in love with Phuong and confesses this fact to Fowler, thus complicating relationships among the three. Phuong eventually leaves Fowler in favor of Pyle, mostly because he will marry her — something the already married Fowler cannot do.

In time, Fowler begins to learn some rather disturbing things about Pyle. It seems that Pyle is not part of the economic office after all, but some kind of secret operative. Indeed, Pyle is responsible for setting off a bicycle bomb in a public square, resulting in the deaths of some 30+ innocent civilians, including women and children. After confirming his suspicions about Pyle, Fowler decides the man must be stopped. Specifically, he encourages an assassination of Pyle, which succeeds.

Afterwards, Fowler’s wife writes to tell him she changed her mind and will grant him a divorce. Phuong comes back, and presumably the two live happily ever after.

Liked:

• This was a beautifully written story. It would take the most sensitive of micrometers to measure my minuscule understand of what was going on in the book in terms of symbolism and political significance, but even this didn’t stop me from seeing what a terrific writer Greene is.
• I saw the Brendan Fraser-Michael Caine movie many years ago, and I think that helped me understand what happened in this novel. I’m not sure if I could have done so otherwise, because some passages were a bit confusing (such as the night in the watchtower).
• Both of the main characters were interesting, and they needed to be. This is very much a book that depends on the characters rather than the plot.

Disliked:

• As I said, I don’t think I understood the significance of what Greene was writing. From other reviews I’ve read, it appears that this book more or less “predicted” American involvement in Vietnam. Even with historical hindsight available to me, I’m not quite sure what the big deal about this book was (politically speaking).
• This is probably a minor thing, but I didn’t want Phuong to go back to Fowler at the end. I didn’t think he deserved her, and thought he was better suited to be alone (even though such a prospect scared him).

Rating:

I read The Quiet American because it is on the Observer Top 100 Novels list — and I’m glad I did. I like Graham Greene’s writing style, and will definitely try a few more of his novels in the near future. As for this book, it is strangely engrossing — even if you don’t think you have any interest in the French Indochina War. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

The book begins by describing Gilmore’s teens and early 20′s, when he first started getting into trouble. I can’t tell you much more than that because I didn’t get very far with this one.

Liked:

Absolutely nothing. I usually try to pick at least one thing I liked about a book, but that’s impossible to do here.

Disliked:

• I thought Mailer’s writing style was godawful, and can’t believe that this book won a Pulitzer Prize. Take a look at the following typical passage:
  

  “What,” asked Gary, “is a Smokey report?”
  “That,” said Brenda, “is the name for the police.”
  “Hey,” asked Gary, “are you going to turn me in?”

  Ugh, it got so damn annoying to have nearly every single line of dialogue interrupted by “asked Gary” or “said Brenda” after the first word. That style completely fucked up the flow of the book and made it so I simply couldn’t continue further.

• As someone not familiar with Gary Gilmore or his crimes, I wasn’t captivated by the story right from the beginning. Mailer didn’t do much to try to draw readers in. It was very easy for me to chuck aside this book in favor of watching a movie, checking Facebook and emails, etc.
• The Executioner’s Song was the first Norman Mailer book I ever attempted. If his writing is always like this, it will also be the last.
• I only tried reading this title because it’s on the Observer’s list of the Top 100 novels of all-time. How it made it there is beyond puzzling.
• Just in case you’re curious, I completed only six percent (Kindle version goes by percent, not page numbers) before giving up.

As Hazel hangs around Taulkinham, he encounters some strange folks. Among them are a blind preacher Asa Hawks and his young daughter Sabbath. Hazel comes upon them while watching a salesman demonstrate potato peelers, and is intrigued enough to follow the two. Meanwhile, Hazel himself is followed by an 18-year-old kid named Enoch Emery, who is supremely lonely after having been abandoned by his father. Hazel tries to follow Hawks and his daughter, while Enoch tags along with him. But when Sabbath realizes what is going on, she screams at Hazel to stay away — despite being attracted to him.

Hazel, whose own grandfather was a street preacher like Hawks, decides that he will start his own church and call it the Church Without Christ. In his heretical views, there will be no need for salvation because there’s no Jesus.

As the novel progresses, the characters find themselves getting into strange situations and end up taking rash actions that they never really intended. For instance, the unbalanced Enoch steals a mummy from a museum because he thinks it’s the new prophet of Hazel’s church, and he later stabs a performer in order to steal a gorilla costume. Hazel allows himself to be seduced by Sabbath, runs over a man hired to act like a prophet for the competing Holy Church of Christ Without Christ started by Onnie Jay Holy (aka Hoover Shoats), and then blinds himself with lime as penance — as Asa Hawks was supposed to have done.

Finally, Hazel ends up all alone at Mrs. Flood’s boarding house where he doesn’t seem to care for anything. He throws money away and doesn’t bother feeding himself. One day, after Mrs. Flood proposes marriage, Hazel leaves, and ends up in a ditch, where he’s subsequently found by police. They beat him with a baton just to make sure he doesn’t give them any trouble, causing him to die in the squad car.

My Reaction: Wise Blood isn’t the sort of book that I can break down easily into “Likes” and “Dislikes” as I usually do. After this first reading, I can’t help but feel that I’m missing the point of the novel, that a lot of symbolism or meaning has escaped me. I’m not ashamed to say that I don’t think I understood all that O’Connor intended to convey with this work.

But, thanks to the summary on Wikipedia and interpretations published in other places, I’ve been able to learn a little bit more about the book. Apparently, this novel can be interpreted as being a “grotesque” comedy because of the extreme situations that the characters get into. I can see how Enoch Emery’s storyline could be construed that way, but I don’t agree that Hazel’s situation was grotesque. I don’t know what word I would use to describe it, but grotesque somehow doesn’t seem to fit.

That said, I thought Hazel was a fascinating character. I mean, not a whole lot happened in this book in terms of action, yet I felt compelled to keep on reading because I wanted to learn what Hazel’s end game was. What was he after? What was his telos, his aim, his purpose? The conflicting ideas of heresy and redemption were thought-provoking as well, and made me truly interested in what was driving Hazel.

Overall, I think Wise Blood is a book that I’ll need to read again at some point in the future in order to absorb the story and characters more and derive additional meaning from it. As it is, I’m giving my first pass through 4 stars out of 5.

There are a handful of other elderly retirees also living at the Claremont, and they immediately try sizing Mrs. Palfrey up. The biggest area of competition among them is how many visitors they get, so Mrs. Palfrey can’t help but brag about Desmond and his work at the British Museum. She claims that he’ll be around to visit her soon, which temporarily elevates her status at the Claremont. So when Desmond doesn’t show, Mrs. Palfrey is devastated.

Things change when Mrs. Palfrey is returning to the Claremont one night after a short shopping trip. She slips on the rain-slicked pavement, cutting her knee and twisting her ankle. No one is around to help her — until a young man bounds out of a basement apartment to offer assistance. This is Ludovic, an impoverished aspiring writer in his early twenties. Ludo bandages up Mrs. Palfrey’s knee, fixes her some tea, and then calls a cab to take her back to the Claremont. As thanks, Mrs. Palfrey invites Ludo to dinner the following Saturday. He accepts.

The proud Mrs. Palfrey is still dealing with Desmond’s virtual abandonment and the stinging comments from other pensioners about her “mythical grandson”. As a result, she impulsively decides to tell them that Desmond is finally coming on Saturday. She means Ludo, of course, and fills him in on the ploy. He readily agrees, thinking it would be great fun to pose as Desmond.

What starts out as a lark turns into a complicated relationship between Mrs. Palfrey and Ludo. She takes an intense liking to the young man, and thinks about him almost in terms that a lover would. Meanwhile, he continues leading his own life, mostly forgetting about the old woman, but occasionally feeling obligated to see her again. In the end, Ludo turns out to be more of a grandson than Desmond ever was, and Mrs. Palfrey takes great joy and comfort from his presence.

Liked:

• I had seen the movie version a couple years prior to reading the book. Though I liked the film well enough, I thought the novel was infinitely better since it explored Mrs. Palfrey’s feelings about Ludo in greater detail. In the film, there were just a couple of hints that Mrs. Palfrey felt more than a maternal sort of love for Ludo, and the book confirms this for me.
• Ludo’s feelings towards Mrs. Palfrey were much more realistic in the book than in the movie. Here he was understandably ambivalent about Mrs. Palfrey. He saw her out of a sense of duty instead of true friendship, which is precisely how one would expect a 20-something to act towards an old woman who’s not even a relative. Ludo viewed Mrs. Palfrey as little more than a case study for his book; and she, in her more penetrating moments, realized this to a certain extent.
• I liked the details Taylor included about the residents of the Claremont, how the biggest delight of the day was something as banal as reading the dinner menu to see what they would be having that night. These images provided some stark insight into what life was like for these incredibly lonely folks.
• The ending was sad, yet perfect. Mrs. Palfrey’s family didn’t think that anyone was left who would care enough to read her obituary, yet the residents at the Claremont kept checking and checking every day. Again, this seemed like exactly the thing that old folks would do.

Disliked:

• The only thing I really disliked about this book was how Taylor sometimes shifted the point-of-view to show what some of the minor characters were thinking. They weren’t nearly as interesting as Mrs. Palfrey or Ludo, so most of the time these departures just took me out of the story.

Rating:
I’ve been reading a few titles off the Observer’s list of the top 100 novels of all time for several years now, but have truly enjoyed only a handful of what I’ve read. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor is definitely one of them. This is a strangely mesmerizing novel that paints a rather bleak, realistic picture of what it’s like to be alone in old age. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

The basic structure of If on a winter’s night a traveler is truly unique. In the author’s own words, from one of the chapters, here is what he basically set out to do:

I have had the idea of writing a novel composed only of the beginnings of novels. The protagonist could be a Reader who is continually interrupted. The Reader buys the new novel A by the author Z. But it is a defective copy, he can’t go beyond the beginning…. He returns to the bookshop to have the volume exchanged….

I could write it all in the second person: you, Reader… I could also introduce a young lady, the Other Reader, and a counterfeiter-translator, and an old writer who keeps a diary like this diary….

And that’s precisely what the reader (small “r”) gets: 10 partial stories all in different styles, alternating with the continuing story of the Reader and Other Reader (Ludmilla).

Liked:

• Once I figured out what was going on in this novel, I was able to enjoy it a bit more. It took a while to get into it, though.
• I liked that all the titles of the partial stories can be pieced together to make a single introductory paragraph of a novel that sounds as though it could be interesting: “If on a winter’s night a traveler, outside the town of Malbork, leaning from the steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo, looks down in the gathering shadow in a network of lines that enlace, in a network of lines that intersect, on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon around an empty grave — What story down there awaits its end? — he asks, anxious to hear the story.”

Disliked:

• This novel came off as rather gimmicky, to be honest. I mean, I know Italo Calvino is a highly respected literary figure and many scholars have praised this title to the skies, but “gimmicky” is the word that leaps to my mind. Could this book have been published by someone without Calvino’s pedigree? I doubt it. And if so, would it have received the same accolades? Again, I doubt it.
• The novelty of the conceit — writing 10 partial stories that end at the most interesting point — wore off rather quickly, making the book dull and repetitive. Moreover, the Reader/Ludmilla story made absolutely zero sense to me, probably because I had trouble keeping track of whatever the hell they were up to the whole time.

Rating:
I know some people will claim I have the attention span of a 5-year-old or something, and blame my intellectual shortcomings for not being able to see the genius in If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino, but whatever. I thought this was one of the most tedious and pretentious books I’ve ever read. Granted, I’m no scholar; I’m just an average reader who likes to be entertained by the books I read. In that respect, Calvino came up short here. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The novel is told from the point of view of Jim Dixon, a first-year university lecturer at a small school in England. The action begins near the end of Dixon’s first term, and his future at the university is in doubt. He’s afraid he hasn’t made much of a positive impact on the department head, Ned Welch, the man in whose hands Dixon’s future rests. Therefore, Dixon feels compelled to acquiesce to a series of requests from Welch that include delivering a year-end lecture on the subject of “Merrie England” and coming to the Welches’ home for a weekend gathering with a few others. The reader is privy to Dixon’s inner thoughts, which make it clear that they are the exact opposite to the sentiments he actually voices.

While at the Welches’ gathering, Dixon runs into Margaret, a colleague of his from the school with whom he has been cultivating the beginnings of a romantic relationship. The only problem is that Margaret is a bit unstable at the moment, having recently attempted suicide after a break-up with a former boyfriend. Dixon seems to be with her out of pity more than anything else.

Dixon also meets Bertrand Welch, Professor Welch’s elder son, and Bertrand’s young girlfriend Christine. Dixon is attracted to Christine, but thinks of her as snobbish based on how she acts during their first meeting. Dixon takes an instant disliking to Bertrand, and will get into numerous confrontations with the painter throughout the novel.

The rest of the story goes on to show how Dixon tries to make things work with Christine while similarly attempting to gently let Margaret down. In addition, Dixon still has to find a way to make a favorable impression on Welch in order to keep his job. Naturally, since Dixon has mostly bad luck, he gets into a bunch of odd situations before having everything work out in the end.

Liked:

• The main character Jim Dixon was rather likable. He seemed a bit bland, to be honest, but out of all the other chumps in the book, he was definitely the most sympathetic.
• The novel definitely had some funny parts to it. Lucky Jim was published 1954 in England, so I’m sure a lot of the humor was lost on me because of time and cultural differences. I wouldn’t call it laugh-out-loud funny, but I smiled a few times.

Disliked:

• The book stalled in so many places because there was very little real conflict to speak of. It was hard to keep going at times because I didn’t particularly care about the outcome and felt that there was no point to what was happening.
• The other characters were such caricatures that it was difficult to imagine Dixon wanting any part of any of them. Why would he want to continue working for a man like Welch? Why would he even entertain the notion of taking up with Margaret? What was so great about Christine that Dixon wanted to go all out to win her?

Rating:

Lucky Jim was not one of the better books that I’ve read from the Observer list, and frankly, I’m puzzled by its inclusion. There wasn’t really anything memorable about the novel; just 5 days have passed since I completed it, and I’m already having trouble recalling the details. I’m sure I’ll forget about it entirely in a few months, which shows how little of an impression it made on me. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Upon turning 15, Oscar decides to join the Church of England in direct opposition to Theophilus’ wishes. He starts living with the Strattons, who are neighbors, and then attends Cambridge. While there, Oscar develops a love of gambling, and routinely bets on horses in order to pay for living expenses. He has a system that he uses, which makes him more successful than not. Eventually, he decides to go to Australia, where he will be given a parish of his own.

The “Lucinda” of the title is Lucinda Leplastrier, a young, orphaned Australian heiress who has poured most of her inheritance into a Sydney glass factory. She doesn’t know much about business when she begins, so she enlists the help of Reverend Dennis Hasset. Lucinda ends up spending so much time with Reverend Hasset that people start speculating about what improprieties may be going on behind closed doors, and Lucinda herself starts to wonder if she loves Hasset. But Hasset never presses the matter. At this time, Lucinda also develops a taste for cards, and can’t resist any kind of gambling she comes across.

Oscar and Lucinda meet on a ship going from England to Australia, and though they don’t interact much at that time, the journey does pave the way for a future relationship. Specifically, Lucinda ends up taking Oscar in as a lodger after his Bishop kicks him out of the parish upon discovering his gambling habit. Oscar was basically homeless and as ragged as a beggar, so Lucinda felt she had no choice. Again, the impropriety of the arrangement set tongues wagging, though behind closed doors nothing was really happening.

Gradually, Oscar and Lucinda do indeed start falling in love with each other. But Oscar thinks Lucinda is still in love with Hasset, while Lucinda thinks Oscar is uninterested because he never broaches the subject. They finally bet each other that Oscar can’t transport a pre-fabricated glass church overland to a distant village and have it set up by Palm Sunday. He thinks if he can do this, he’ll be able to win her over. She offers up her entire inheritance if he can. The outcome of the bet was actually surprising and caught me off guard.

Liked:

• I enjoyed the gambling angle quite a bit. I don’t think there are enough main characters in literature who love gambling, so this was kind of cool to see. I like gambling myself, so I could understand where Oscar and Lucinda were coming from most of the time.
• The final bet about the glass church was interesting. I’m not sure why they thought they could safely transport glass, though, nor did I get why the church had to be built before they even made it to the site. That’s how it broke, right?

Disiked:

• I didn’t understand why Oscar slept with Miriam immediately upon arrival at Bellingen. First of all, I thought he was in love with Lucinda, so why would he give in to this woman so easily? Especially since he had won his bet and had a chance to impress Lucinda. Second, wasn’t he absolutely nasty from his journey? Peter Carey made a point of saying that Oscar refused to bathe in front of the other men and that he stank, plus he had some kind of bowel condition that would make him a good case study for anyone writing Colonix program reviews. Why would Miriam want to set herself on Oscar in that condition? Sorry, but this made no sense to me.
• I thought it was pretty crappy that Oscar died in the church as it was still sitting on the barges. So one of the boats sank, causing the church to fill up with water, which led to Oscar’s drowning? That seemed like such a totally random event… and highly unlikely to boot.
• This novel had one of the slowest beginnings ever! The stuff about Oscar’s childhood was soooo boring that it took me a couple of weeks to get through — even though the chapters are so damn short! You know how conventional wisdom for publishing anything these days is to grab the reader’s attention right from the start and never let go? Well, obviously Peter Carey doesn’t believe in that axiom, and neither does his publisher. Yikes.

Rating:

I read Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey because it’s on the Observer’s list of the Top 100 Novels ever written. However, I didn’t like it very much at all, and certainly wouldn’t include it in my own personal top 100. I’m sure others love the book and are wondering how I can be so dense as to not see its greatness, but man, it just wasn’t for me. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The story is told from the first-person point of view of Masuji Ono, a retired artist who once held some prominence in Japan for works he created prior to and during World War II. Set in the reconstruction era, Ono reflects on his past as he runs into different people he used to hobnob with quite frequently, slowly revealing details of his earlier life in the process.

It turns out that Ono had produced some prints that he considered art, but that were essentially propaganda for the Japanese emperor and military troops. After Japan lost the war, many Japanese were ready to move on from the past and start building a better future, and as a result, felt that Ono’s works were misguided at best and scandalous at worst. The artist himself fails to recognize the discomfort people feel in his presence, as he just goes about his quiet life. Finally, he begins to ask himself if he perhaps made a mistake after all, and what kind of reparations would be suitable to atone for his past actions.

The ending of the novel is rather vague, but the reader gets the sense that Ono ends up not doing anything at all about his past. Rather, he seems content to mull over the possibilities, put a different spin on past conversations (“maybe he was really saying…”), and continue on in the same vein for the rest of his life. In other words, Ono is essentially in the very same place at the end of the novel as he was in the beginning (outwardly), and none of his musings seem to manifest in any clear, positive action.

My Reaction: Though there’s no external action to speak of in An Artist of the Floating World, I found myself instantly drawn into the novel and the plight of the main character. Ishiguro masterfully revealed just enough details along the way to keep me interested in finding out what grave sins Ono had committed during the war, and though the final unveiling of the propaganda pieces was a bit anticlimactic to me (they didn’t seem to be that big a deal in the grand scheme of things), I was nevertheless fully invested in the characters and plot by that time.

This is the kind of novel that’s meant to be read and savored at a leisurely pace. If you fly through it, which is possible considering the length and the relatively easy subjects of Ono’s ruminations, then you’re liable to miss a lot of the subtleties and nuances supplied by Ishiguro, not to mention the delightful descriptions of Japan scattered throughout the narrative.

Overall, An Artist of the Floating World is a surprisingly engrossing read despite the lack of “action”. If you’re interested in a good character piece, I recommend giving this book a try! I give it 4 stars out of 5.

They travel for quite a long time before arriving at the giant’s cave. Sophie is convinced that the giant means to eat her, especially after she witnesses the actions of the giant’s nine far bigger, far more vicious companions. But when they’re alone, Sophie’s giant says his name is BFG, which stands for Big Friendly Giant. Unlike the other giants he lives with, the BFG does not eat “human beans”, so Sophie has nothing to worry about. The BFG took her away because he’d never been seen by a human bean before, and he got scared. He doesn’t want to be put in a zoo, tracked with a barcode scanner, or otherwise studied in any way, which is what he’s sure would happen if humans learned of his existence.

Sophie and the BFG soon become friends and share stories of their lives. Sophie is fascinated by the BFG’s tales, and thinks that he’s really a lovely giant. But she insists that they must do something to stop the other giants, who go to different countries every night to pluck unsuspecting children out of their beds and eat them for supper.

The BFG agrees, and together they hatch a plan that involves the Queen of England and the Royal Army. Convincing the Queen that giants are real and that the BFG is indeed a friendly one is their biggest challenge, but Sophie and the BFG complete that task with relative ease. Then they enlist the help of Army and Air Force helicopters to capture the other giants, transport them to a deep hole, and imprison them there forever.

Liked:

• This was a whimsical book that I’m sure children in the target age group would enjoy.
• Sophie is a likable main character, and proves to have a good heart, which is just the kind of role model that children’s books should feature.
• The BFG and his world were vividly described by Dahl, and the special language the BFG utilized was a lot of fun.

Disliked:

• There wasn’t a whole lot of action in the book. I expected a kid’s book to be filled with more adventures, but Dahl seemed content to reveal everything through dialogue rather than more compelling scenes.
• I thought the ending was kind of lame. I know Dahl didn’t want to kill off the other giants because he was preaching the whole “two wrongs don’t make a right” theme, but still… it was anticlimactic to have the giants end up in a hole in the ground.

Rating:

I read this book because it’s on the Observer list of the Top 100 novels of all-time, so I was expecting a real treat. And while I did have more likes than dislikes in my above lists, I just couldn’t figure out why on earth this novel rates as one of the best 100 ever written. I thought Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was much better. Anyway, I give The BFG 3 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The story opens on the 30th birthday of Josef K., a mid-level bank manager who lives in a shabby apartment building. Two police officers come to his door in the morning to arrest him, though they never tell him what crime he has committed. They don’t haul him off to jail, but instead tell him to await further instructions pertaining to his court date. Josef K. is shocked at what’s going on, and initially thinks it might be some elaborate practical joke since it’s his birthday , but he soon realizes that it’s all for real.

From there, the novel follows Josef K. as he tries to find out more information about his upcoming trial. The problem is, he can’t get answers from anyone, and doesn’t even know what’s expected of him. Not knowing the crimes that he’s being charged with doesn’t help, either. He ends up getting advice (often conflicting) from other people that he meets along the way. Some of them have had direct experience with the courts, while others have just heard different things.

A year later, Josef K.’s court proceedings finally come to an end. The whole thing culminates in his execution, as he is put down like a “dog” for whatever crime he committed.

My Reaction: I thought The Trial was pure torture to read. It was so boring and drawn-out that it sometimes felt like it would never end. In fact, as I was reading it, I couldn’t help but think of another book that went on and on and on without anything actually happening: Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I would rather do anything — anything than ever have to read either of these books again!

I’m sure there are people out there who eat this kind of crap up and call it “brilliant” and “insightful”. After all, there’s a reason The Observer thinks this is one of the best 100 novels ever written. But I just couldn’t stand it. I didn’t care about Josef K. or his plight, and was relived when he was finally put down like a dog, as it meant the end of my own suffering. Ugh, this novel was irritating from beginning to end, and really leaves me with no real comments about it, other than to say that I hated it.

Is there a larger message that I’m missing? Is Kafka some deep thinker whose words and ideas went way over my head? Perhaps. Honestly, I didn’t even try to figure out any symbolism or anything like that because I didn’t care enough to spend extra time on the book. What an utter waste! I give it 1 star out of 5.