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New Review: Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures
January 31, 2002 (5:28 AM) ( link ) ADDED a review of Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures. Hm, I didn't think I would like this book too much, but the more time passes after finishing it, the more fondly I remember it. In a way it was like Douglas Adams's books (at least for me): not memorable the first time around, but excellent for the memories.
I will at some point continue on with Pratchett's Discworld novels; for now, however, I think I'll be replacing Moving Pictures with Glen Cook's The Black Company, the first in his ten-book series. This will be quite a change from the frothy entertainment that was Moving Pictures; The Black Company is supposed to be a dark, violent, gritty depiction of mercenaries uprooted from their homeland. Sounds good to me!
I haven't made any progress on Ficciones, From Hell, or even A Suitable Boy. But at some point, progress will begin on all three (at least I hope so!).
Thoughts on Moving Pictures, Ficciones, From Hell
January 29, 2002 (7:58 AM) ( link ) Did I say that I was going to put my Book Reviews page on a hiatus? I lied—I am literally incapable of going an entire day without reading something. Or, many things, as today's brief blog will testify.
Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures is, so far, ok. There have been some really, really bad movie puns ("What's up, Duck?" is eminently groan-worthy) and lots of slightly humorous throwaway lines. The general situations are, unfortunately, not quite hilarious now, but they are charming in their own way. So far the most amusing parts of the book come from the scenes that the directors shoot and the ever-more-lurid posters that are being pasted around Holy Wood. And, of course, there is the hilarious scene with Gaspode. But other than that, no real ROTFL moments yet, even though I'm almost halfway through.
Borges's Ficciones is weird. I'm only on the first story and I don't get what's going on—I sense ideas, but they're whizzing way, way over my head. I don't remember "The Circular Ruins" being so mind-boggling; perhaps I should try reading each story in one sitting rather than stretching one story over several reads.
Finally, Alan Moore's From Hell is lushly and eruditely written but at times excruciatingly slow—particularly during William Gull's chapter-long monologues. This graphic novel is definitely Art, but it's not altogether entertaining. At its heights, though, From Hell is unparalleled. I'm on the sixth chapter right now; there are eight more to go (but they're each much longer than the first six).
Moving Pictures
January 28, 2002 (6:53 AM) ( link ) So, Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures is only slightly amusing. There have been some laugh-out-loud moments, though: the introduction of "banged grains," Dribbler's new and improved movie descriptions ("Pelias and Melisande: A Storie of Forbiden Love. Thys wille shok you! With a 1,000 elephants!"), and some of Pratchett's more evocative descriptions ("Dibbler’s expression was the expression worn by something long and sleek and white as it swims over the reef and into the warm shallow waters of the kiddies’ paddling area").
It's also an easy read so far, which is good, considering I don't really have that much time to read it. Unfortunately, it's not yet rolling-on-the-ground funny, which I was kind of hoping for. Then again, very few books actually make me laugh out loud as I read. For some reason humor just doesn't translate well on the page for me. In fact, I can't think of a single truly funny book that I've read—even The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy wasn't funny to me until people started repeating the jokes. God knows I could use some humor now, though, as the thesis monster cackles on my shoulder.
Temporary hiatus
January 27, 2002 (4:05 PM) ( link ) Book reviews will be put on a temporary halt as I work on my thesis.
New Review: James Dickey's Deliverance
January 27, 2002 (7:16 AM) ( link ) ADDED a review of James Dickey's Deliverance. Next up: Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures, a standalone novel in his ongoing Discworld series. I think I will be reading Pratchett's lighthearted work along with Seth's tome and Jorge Luis Borges's Ficciones, which I will dip into now and then when I feel like it. That should tide me over for the next month or so.
New Review: Kobo Abe's The Ark Sakura
January 27, 2002 (12:53 AM) ( link ) ADDED a review of Kobo Abe's The Ark Sakura. What a ridiculous book. As I wrote the review I only got angrier that I had spent the time reading it.
Next on the list: Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. After I finish reading Deliverance (by tomorrow, I should think), I will also start reading a light science-fiction or fantasy book to counterbalance the weight (both literary and physical) of Seth's tome.
Taltos and A Suitable Boy
January 26, 2002 (6:07 AM) ( link ) A brief visit to the Cambridge Public Library today resulted in my current possession of Steven Brust's Taltos and Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. I should be starting A Suitable Boy after I finish The Ark Sakura; I think I'll have to figure out what other books to read with it so that they'll provide suitably light side entertainment for the main attraction.
The Ark Sakura is just getting weirder and weirder and weirder. I'm nearly done with it though; there may even be a chance of posting a review later tonight (though I doubt it), or, at the very least, some time tomorrow (probably late also).
Deliverance is actually quite good; as Auden would put it, I can see that this is good and with perseverance I am sure to like it. Dickey writes quite well; his descriptions of nature are particularly noteworthy. The dialogue is also fairly good, a sharp contrast to the weird, stilted tone of The Ark Sakura. And the action is clean, simple, and at times visceral. Unfortunately, perhaps because I've only been reading a few pages a day, I haven't really gotten into Deliverance. Perhaps the last few pages of it—I'm also almost done with this book—will reveal some remarkable twist that will throw new light on the whole volume. But I doubt it.
Finally, though I usually have no problem reading comic books, Alan Moore's From Hell is a tough brick to chew. (What kind of metaphor is that? Just look at the time that I'm posting this.) It's tough for me to just work up the strength every night to read it. However, I think it'll be a good counterbalance to A Suitable Boy, once I start reading that.
Until next time.
Updated Books I Plan to Read
January 24, 2002 (5:27 PM) ( link ) I've updated the Books I Plan to Read page, removing some entries and putting in a whole lot more. My more intense reading schedule this year has really opened my eyes to the fact that a lot of stuff out there just isn't very compelling; perhaps my childhood dream of becoming a writer will become reality if I become motivated enough by my boredom at most books.
Case in point: The Ark Sakura. The concept is great and the writing is decent, if not stellar, but the book is starting to drag on me. Why spend so much time on all of these inane activities when so much more could be happening? So far, Kobo Abe's book is reminding me a lot of Iain Banks's The Wasp Factory, which may prompt me to go re-evaluate my ranking for Banks's book. But I do remember The Wasp Factory being a fairly interesting read, perhaps because the protagonist in that book is so much weirder (and thereby more enthralling) than the protagonist in The Ark Sakura.
Case in point, part two: James Dickey's Deliverance. I started this book before realizing that it was listed on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels page (it's number 42). Unfortunately, it's also not very good. Sure, it's easy enough to follow, and the action is starting to pick up after a harrowing crime scene, but for now it just feels like meaningless action to me.
It really has been a long time since I've read something I've liked a lot: the last one would be Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, and before that both of Connie Willis's books. I had fun with David Eddings's series, and I enjoyed Steven Brust's Jhereg and Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, but otherwise my reading list has been pretty dry.
Sigh. Time to move beyond: hopefully some of the new books I've placed on my Books I Plan to Read page will inspire me more than these have.
Web page visitors, and WH Auden
January 23, 2002 (5:35 AM) ( link ) Very interesting: it turns out that most of the people who visit this web page are not from Harvard at all. In fact, for most of them I have no idea where they come from. And, miraculously, I have passed the double-digit mark (in fact, I did so a while ago).
Reading continues apace. The Ark Sakura is all right: quirky, cleanly written, and very, very weird. The book is not really gripping, but it is interesting in the same way as an unusual toy: you don't know quite what it is, but for some reason your eyes keep straying back to it. I should have a review up in a day or so.
I've also begun pushing my way through Alan Moore's From Hell, which I began a while ago but never finished. Moore's prose in From Hell (which is a graphic novel about Jack the Ripper) is luscious but at times difficult to swallow. In particular, I find Gull's lengthy traversals of London to be stultifying stuff. But the artwork is a scratchy but somehow eloquent black and white (not quite as gorgeous as Frank Miller's work in Sin City, though), and the storyline is wonderfully byzantine. It should be good.
Finally, here's a really great quotation by WH Auden (from A Certain World): "For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five: I can see this is good and I like it; I can see this is good but I don't like it; I can see this is good and, though at present I don't like it, I believe that with perseverance I shall come to like it; I can see that this is trash but I like it; I can see that this is trash and I don't like it." I will certainly try to keep this in mind while reviewing my books, since these five categories really do seem to encompass the whole of my judgments.
New Review: CJ Cherryh's The Pride of Chanur
January 21, 2002 (11:08 PM) ( link ) ADDED a review of CJ Cherryh's The Pride of Chanur. This was not a good book. At any rate, in web page news, I've managed to fix up the glosssary so that from now on links should work just fine. But I need to find a way to easily go through my news archives (and all of my reviews) to fix up links that are now broken due to the reorganization of my web page.
Next up on my reading list is a book by Kobo Abe: The Ark Sakura. I should also be checking out and starting to read (again) A Suitable Boy some time soon. Finally, I expect at some point to repopulate my Books I Plan to Read Page. (There will also, of course, be intermittent graphic-novel reviews in the meantime.)
New Reviews: Warren Ellis's Relentless: The Authority Vol. 1 and Frank Miller's That Yellow Bastard
January 18, 2002 (12:58 PM) ( link ) ADDED reviews of Warren Ellis's Relentless: The Authority Vol. 1 and Frank Miller's That Yellow Bastard, both graphic novels, again. I should be posting reviews for actual novels some time soon, once I get finished with a couple of them. I'll be gone for a few days, but when I return I'm going to check out Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy again and restart it. And, of course, there's all sorts of little books that I've been meaning to read all along.
Oh—let's not forget about my thesis. Heh.
New Reviews: Warren Ellis's Dark Blue and Frank Miller's Sin City
January 17, 2002 (6:08 PM) ( link ) ADDED reviews of Warren Ellis's Dark Blue and Frank Miller's Sin City, both graphic novels. They've actually been up for a while already, but I've been delaying posting this news until my web page programming was done (or mostly so).
Right now, just about everything no this web page works, except for:
1. Genre and Format index pages (see above/below)
2. Old news links: in fact, I have to find some easy way to replace all of my links from the old news. And replace the glossary. Sigh.
3. Web counter. It's doing funky, funky things: like today, I came in and it said only 2 people had visited, when yesterday that number had been at least 10. So something's going wrong, though I'm not sure what. The problem, I think, is that the counter is in an image file now, but the image file doesn't always load. Then again, I don't want to put it in frames, because then I'm afraid search engines won't go through my frames. Oh well, whatever.
4. Links page? I realize I didn't integrate that with this page yet: maybe some time soon.
I expect to have some new reviews tonight, with some graphic novels but also at least one book that I've been reading. I've also been thinking about what to put on my "Books I Plan to Read Page" page; that should be updated soon also.
DONE WITH FINALS!
January 15, 2002 (8:50 PM) ( link ) The new page is now up. Mark the day and the time, ladies and gentlemen. (It should be 10:01 PM right now.) Most everything should be properly fixed: a couple of things will, no doubt, need a great deal of tweaking. However, in the bar above, only the Authors link works (and, shortly, the Latest link); everything else is still being programmed by me.
Oh: and, I also have a web counter down on the bottom that actually keeps track of REAL visitors (not just me reloading my page). So now we (or rather, I) can despair when that number fails to break the double digit mark.
(11:19 PM): I've managed to program the "Recently Added" column correctly, by a miracle. So now the four most recent reviews, along with a summary of each one, is posted to the right. Amazing! (I'm not certain whether to put genre/format information on there.) I'm probably going to add a new review some time tonight, just to test out the whole system. Also, I have to figure out a new format to put "New Reviews" in here: probably not bolded (I'll make the subject line's "New Review" in red) but should I provide a link to the page? I'm not sure.
Ok, the Latest pages now work. Next I have to figure out a way to get the rest of the stuff to work—plus the old news archives, where all the links are broken!
Prototype getting better
January 15, 2002 (5:23 AM) ( link ) Any day now, I'm going to switch this web site with my redesign. Here's the home page for the prototype; here's my plan for the next page. Exciting.
More web page redesign
January 12, 2002 (5:05 PM) ( link ) I continue to work on the prototype web page. Series information now works on it, after minimal programming.
I've also been thinking about some of the books that I've been reading for this page. It's definitely the case that a lot of my opinions are shaped in one form or another by the circumstances under which I read the book. For instance, I was reading (again) the last chapter of John Steakley's Armor, and it seems a lot better than I remembered. On the other hand, other books I can read in the worst circumstances and still like, such as Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, which I finished one night when I had an intense case of insomnia. Hm. Maybe this calls for more rereading, or maybe this just calls for reading when I shouldn't be doing anything else.
More progress on web page
January 11, 2002 (11:11 AM) ( link ) More progress on my prototype web page, including the integration of series information into the review pages and an automatic "Number of Reviews" counter. Hurrah! My final paper is due today, after which I have two finals in rapid succession. And then I'll finally have some time to devote to finishing up this web page, including the thorny task of transition (which I'm not looking forward to).
Prototype new web design
January 9, 2002 (8:57 AM) ( link ) I haven't been doing much fun reading lately, due to my focus on finals and on this site's redesign. The redesign's primary benefits will be (1) No frames, (2) Complete automation, and (3) Greater similarity to the fantastic site, Danny Yee's Book Reviews. For those who promise not to laugh at my currently nascent efforts, take a look at this prototype new web page. Just think: everything there (just a few reviews for now) was generated using just one set of text files. Ahh...automation.
Drastic web page redesign soon
January 8, 2002 (9:51 AM) ( link ) No reading yet, but I have been working on a way to revamp this web site, making the updating of reviews and the generation of index files completely automatic from my end. I should be done with all the nitty-gritty stuff by the end of the month, and I'll probably be tweaking with web-site design for a long, long time to come. Fortunately, tweaking with design will also be easy: right now, I've got a web-page generator that allows me to take a collection of text-file reviews and then convert them, via the magic of gawk, into a uniform collection of web pages. If I want to change the background from all of them, a simple switch in one template, and I'm done. While I'm sure the programming is a total mess, computers are fast enough nowadays to hide the sheer inefficiency of my code. Anyway, programming is as much fun as I remembered it being; somewhere buried inside my liberal arts shell lurks a dormant (and sometimes not-so-dormant) computer geek.
Not much reading
January 7, 2002 (11:00 PM) ( link ) It's been a couple days since I've been able to get any reading in, unfortunately. However, I have had the fortune of running across some of Frank Miller's graphic novels, including Sin City and its various incarnations. I will also be putting up a review of his classic Batman - The Dark Knight Returns as soon as I can. So, many reviews are in the sidelines, for when I need to take a break from studying.
On the studying side of things, I just finished my First Nights essay today (Monday), and I have a Wittgenstein essay on Thursday and a Appiah paper on Friday. Then I have finals next Tuesday and Wednesday. And somewhere in between a thesis must—must—materialize. Sigh.
New Review: Louis McMaster Bujold's Barrayar
January 4, 2002 (5:04 PM) ( link ) ADDED a review of Louis McMaster Bujold's Barrayar. I really didn't like it that much, although it was better than Shards of Honor. I think I will hold off pursuing the Vorkosigan series for a short while, since the first two entries haven't impressed me. What lies next? Who knows. I may have to swear off reading fiction for a while, though, until my finals are over: two weeks from now. Sigh.
New Review: Louis McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor
January 3, 2002 (9:56 AM) ( link ) ADDED a review of Louis McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor. It was an inauspicious beginning for the famed Vorkosigan series. I'm leaving for Harvard tonight and should return early tomorrow morning.
This site has reached its four-month anniversary! In the last month (December) I have read 14 novels and written, appropriately enough, 14 reviews. This brings my total number of reviews up to 53. I should have a statistics page up soon that will document all of these changes.
New Review: Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City
January 2, 2002 (10:57 PM) ( link ) ADDED a review of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. I read this last night when I had insomnia, after I finished Sophie's World. It's a brief book, but a really, really good one. It's also inspired me to give up science-fiction and fantasy for a while and read some real literature for once.
New Review: Jostien Gaarder's Sophie's World
January 2, 2002 (11:18 AM) ( link ) ADDED a review of Jostien Gaarder's Sophie's World. I liked it—not all of it, but enough to feel safe recommending it to those who would like a primer on Western philosophy. I'm not sure what I'm reading next; my Books I Plan to Read page is beginning to look shorter and less inspiring than it did a few weeks ago.
Vacation almost over....
January 2, 2002 (6:21 AM) ( link ) I'm approaching the end of my winter vacation with no thesis in sight but, fortunately, a few papers almost done. I'm still progressing through Sophie's World, which, now that it's talking about more modern philosophy, is becoming truly excellent. I might even be inspired to begin reading Betrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy. Mostly Sophie's World is good in allowing me to see the connection between philosophers, such as the relationship between Hegel and Marx (which had never been entirely clear to me). A Suitable Boy is slow, really, really slow. I think I might instead read it after my finals are over. And Orca continues page by page—unfortunately, it's not exactly enthralling, but I hope to finish it before I finally leave. So, I expect to have reviews of Sophie's World and Orca up by tomorrow or possibly the day afterward. Tomorrow is also the four-month anniversary of this site! I think I'll be starting a statistics page just so you can see how this site has grown, particularly this month.
Happy New Year!
January 1, 2002 (4:19 AM) ( link ) Happy new year, everybody. (Or maybe it's just me.) I'm going back to school in a few days, and I can look forward to finals (blah) and friends (yay). Some time over the next year, I can also look forward to getting into a good law school (hopefully), finishing my thesis, graduating, turning 21, going to law school, and putting ever more years between me and my idyllic childhood. Sigh. Anyway, peace on earth, good will to men, and so on—have a safe and happy new year.
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