Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

While I was compiling my list of American classics to read I thought that I should have at least one Western in there. Not being at all familiar with this genre I chose Lonesome Dove as its Pulitzer Prize winning credentials gave me some reassurance.

I have to admit that I almost rethought this when the novel arrived from Amazon and I then realised that Lonesome Dove is over 950 pages. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy to tackle a massive epic book over 950 pages under normal circumstances, but this was a genre I wasn’t familiar with or even overly interested in. But heck I will give almost anything a whirl and I did as part of a read-along hosted by My Friend Amy, reading a manageable ten chapters a week.

Having never read this genre before I was not sure what to expect. What I did get were good guys, bad guys, gun fights, harsh landscapes and the odd damsel in distress and I loved every bit of it.

The plot in essence are the adventures of the Hat Creek Cattle Company as they make their way from Texas to Montana driving their cattle. Of course the author has to keep the readers attention for 950+ pages so there are a huge array of characters all with interesting back-stories, an epic plot in which you find plenty of sub-plots and some twists and turns to keep the reader on their toes. I was certainly never bored.

The characters are likeable because they are depicted honestly rather than the clichés they could have been but what surprised me most about this novel was the humour. There are a lot of laugh out loud funny moments in this book and I found myself chuckling in quite a few places.

The ending did feel a little rushed, almost as if the author was in a hurry to finish the job and quickly round everything up but I can forgive him for the 40 or so pages at the end when the other 900+ ones were so brilliant.

I never thought I would enjoy this book as much as I did but I really loved it. As a result I be participating in the Western Read-a-long hosted by C.B.James in May. The read-along is easy, all you have to do is read one western book during the month of May and the details can be found here.

It just goes to show that its sometimes a very good idea to venture into a genre you are not at all familiar with and I'd urge anyone who hasn't to give the Western a whirl.

Posted by Jess

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Bibliojunkie hosted a read-along of Midnight's Children which I was very eager to join even though this isn't a book which was on my TBR list. The reason why I joined this particular read-along, aside from the fact that I seem to be addicted to read-alongs, is because I just wanted to say 'oh yeah I've read Rushdie' Totally the wrong reason for wanted to read a book I'm sure but what the hell, I'm just being honest.

Once I downloaded the book and I started to read it my heart sank when I realised the novel was an example of 'Magic Realism'. The only other book I've read which contained Magic Realism elements is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez which I gave up on as my brain seemed to do a mental block when anything which I deemed 'weird' happened, which was a lot.

For some reason though I was perfectly fine with the Magic Realism elements in Midnight's Children and in fact I rather enjoyed them. I have no idea why I couldn't get to grips with the Magic Realism in García Márquez's writing as I haven't read enough of it to tell the difference, but for whatever reason, with Rushdie I was completely on board.

The novel follows the life of the narrator Saleem Sinai who was born at midnight at the exact time that India gained independence. The story has a political thread as India's history and emotional stances speed by (and clashing) with Saleem's own life. The history in the book is not entirely accurate as the book has not been researched. It is instead written from Saleem's own memories, so parts are in the wrong order or plot elements are given away far to early or late. This may give you the impression that there is no structure to the novel but there is, an almost rigid one.

Most chapters (if not all?) start with Saleem in the present who gives an introduction/update on his present life to the reader. His lover Padma will often intervene here asking questions and instructing Saleem to stick to the point. I can't say I particularly connected with any of the characters unfortunately but I was willing to stick with the novel and the overall story, it didn't at any point occur to me to stop reading.

The biggest thought that sprang to my mind while reading Midnight's Children was 'where the heck is this all going'. Most of the novel just seemed to meander through different places, plot lines and themes. I had no idea if there was a point to it all as I just could not see where it was all leading to. Normally this wouldn't bother me but at over 650 pages I wanted something other than a fizzled out ending to all this.

I should have had more faith in Rushdie as 96% of the way through (I made a note of the % on my kindle) suddenly everything slotted into place and as everything came round full circle I realised that Rushdie had had a plan all along so I was left feeling a happy reader.

Reading Midnight's Children has certainly been an experience and while large parts of it went right over my head or I lost it completely this didn't seem to matter as I always managed to keep up with the story and the unbelievably layered writing. This novel would certainly benefit from a couple of re-reads and I can see myself doing this in a couple of years time.

While I would describe the novel as a challenging read I never found it a chore but it is unlikely I would read another book by this author..

Posted by Jess

Dream a little dream...

I really enjoy fiction and now read much more of it than non-fiction. Made up stories never appealed to me before but nowadays I read little else. For all my enthusiasm there is one aspect to fiction that irritates me a great deal. When a chapter ends with a character falling asleep I know that at the beginning of the next chapter I will be unwillingly whisked away into a surreal world of bizarre imagery and nonsensical rubbish. I'm talking of the dream segment.

My main question is: Why?

I have been giving it some thought lately and I cannot fathom what possible benefit a dream gives to my reading experience. Exactly what relevance to a story is a dream? When I encounter a written dream I invariably skip over it and try to forget it was there. I just cannot see the point of them.

I understand that some people believe dreams can have some sort of meaning either subconsciously or perhaps some form of clairvoyance. Perhaps other readers feel a dream gives a book the impression of mysticism and intrigue. My cynicism tells me it is nothing more than a poor attempt by the author at padding; throw in a few pointless dreams here and there and you can waste up to ten pages saying nothing of benefit to the storyline

Does anyone enjoy reading about dreams in a book?

Chris

The Old Man and the Sea

I am relatively new to Ernest Hemingway's work. This was the third of his books I have read and I must say it was my least favourite of the three.

The Old Man and the Sea, arguably, has only one character; Santiago. A down-on-his-luck fisherman who rows out one day and hooks an enormous Marlin on his line. What follows is a desperate battle, fought over several days, during which the Marlin drags Santiago and his little boat further out to sea whilst Santiago stubbornly holds onto the line and refuses to let the fish go.

There were several positive aspects to the book; I felt Hemingway portrayed the self doubt and struggle of Santiago well throughout the book, the pace was good and the actions and thoughts of Santiago were shown well albeit in Hemingway's usually sparse and direct style and initially I found the simpleness of the story very appealing.

Ultimately I didn't like this book which saddened me as it is generally considered one of his best works. Although I initially liked the sparse nature of the story and the fast pace, by the end of the book I felt very strongly that the story needed more meat on its bones. I never felt as if I got to know much about Santiago, the story became very repetitive after a while and frankly too much time was spent in the boat with Santiago when other characters could have been introduced and developed. I found the wholesale, haphazard slaughter of sea creatures uncomfortable reading however I did expect it knowing what a fan of big game hunting Hemingway was. As for Santiago repeatedly eating sea creatures raw (including a dolphin and several flying fish from inside the dolphin's stomach) I felt Hemingway had gone a little too far with his obsession with macho behaviour. For most of the book I was actually rooting for the Marlin rather than Santiago which I'm not sure I was supposed to do.

According to critics and literary experts the novella is full of hidden meaning and some religious significance. Personally I did not see any of this but rather the idea of Man against Beast which has been done to death.

Perhaps I am missing the point of it, who knows? All I can say for certain is that I didn't really enjoy it.

Overall rating 2/5

Chris

Persephone Secret Santa

It's the Persephone Secret Santa reveal day today and its time for me to reveal my secret Santa.

I was very lucky that mine arrived all the way from across the Atlantic from Minnesota and I received a wonderful package from Amy at newcenturyreading. Bizarrely enough I visited Minneapolis/St Pauls many years ago during the summer where I took a trip on the lakes, drank loads of long Island Iced teas and merriment was had until the early hours LOL

I apologise now for the very naff photo taken with my phone (I've lost my camera) but as you can see I have not one but two books to get very excited about. The Persephone title is 'Someone at a Distance' by Dorothy Whipple. I'm really pleased with this choice because I've heard quite a bit about Dorothy Whipple and her book about a deceived wife and foolish husband looks like it goes beneath the surface which always appeals to me.



I thought the second book at first glance was some kind of travel book as it doesn't look at all like the kind of paperbacks we get over here in England and plus the title is 'Main Street'. However once I looked closer I realised that in fact it was a novel by Sinclair Lewis, the only Minnesotan Nobel Prize winning author and is a scathing look at the authors home town.

I would like to thank my secret Santa sending very much for this, I thought the second book was such a thoughtful gesture and a wonderful surprise and I am looking forward to reading it shortly and adding it to my American Project list.

Last but not least there were also some chocolates in the package (I was a bit overwhelmed with the generosity at this point) I am sure you can't tell from the photo but on the day I received them I was er 'resting my eyes' on the couch when my two year old son very stealthy and without actually taking the lid off them ate nearly all of them. Thankfully he saved me one which was very nice! Since all traces of the stolen ones have gone my son also gave them the thumbs up.

Lastly I'd like to say that organising something like this takes time and then the person organising it all has to worry about whether the packages have all arrived etc. So I'd also like to say a huge thank-you to Claire for organising and coordinating us all so well.

Posted by Jess

The Natural by Bernard Malamud

Bernard Malamud was (according to Wikipedia) one of the great American Jewish authors of the 20th century. The Natural was his first novel which was written in 1952 and follows the story of Roy Hobbs, a baseball player who's career was cut short in his youth. When Roy reaches middle age, he gets the chance to use his natural talent to achieve status in the world of baseball once again.

I really really didn't like this book, at all.

My husband has an unusual interest in baseball. Obviously in America/Cuba/Japan etc. this is not an unusual interest, but in the UK where the sport is not televised on terrestrial television (I don't think it's even on the satellite channels) it is an unusual interest. As a result I have seen my fair share of cheesy baseball films which all seem to be made by Disney. Well this book was like reading the script of one of these films and seemed to contain every cliché going.

Now of course this book was written in 1952 and the ideas within the novel would not have been cliché at time of publication, I know this. But having seen my fair share of baseball films I am afraid that I inwardly groaned when the next plot development crept in.

The main character Roy is a self destructive man with a major chip on his shoulder. He is hired by the 'New York Knights' a team which is on a losing streak. Once Roy joins, the main star of the team, a man called 'bump' takes an instant dislike to Roy for no reason whatsoever and they become enemies. Roy then falls for the coaches daughter who happens to be the sweetheart of.......his enemy bump (surprised? I wasn't) I'm going to stop with the plot outline now before I cry.

I feel bad about this, the writing itself wasn't bad despite the lack of character development and to be fair Malamud did avoid the very last cliché which is used at the end of the film (you know where its all down to the player who is the last to bat and the team need a home run, then its strike one, strike two etc etc)

Malamud went onto win the Pulitzer prize with his novel The Fixer so perhaps I just read the wrong book? Perhaps the plot chiques are part of the point and not being a baseball fan I simply don't get it?

All I know is that the film version staring Robert Redford is apparently far far better.

Verdict 1/5

Posted by Jess