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Archived Musings
Entries from February 2006
I haven’t finished a book since February 4. I haven’t even read much in the past couple of weeks. While I normally use the TV just for DVD viewing, I turn into a complete couch potato at certain times. And the Winter Olympics are one of those times.
I should be back to my normal bookwormy self next week, though.
1919 is getting more difficult for me to read, mainly because there are so many characters in U.S.A.. 700+ pages into the “trilogy,” I’m having a damned hard time keeping everyone straight, particularly since most of them aren’t remarkably interesting in and of themselves. The indistinctness helps create the social portrait - some of them are so vaguely defined, it’s easy to see them as an “everyman.” But it makes it harder for me to remember where they fit or how exactly their stories are progressing.
The Sheltering Sky is quite a bit easier, and I’d be done with it already if I just stopped sitting in front of the TV. I haven’t gotten too far into this book yet (I’m only a few chapters in), but I fly through it when I actually pick it up. I like it so far but can’t quite pinpoint why.
Hopefully I’ll finish at least one of these books by the end of the month. But we’ll see.
Posted on 23 February 2006 - 13:31 | 1 Comment
As I’d mentioned before, I had initially tried to read Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead when I was in high school, but for one reason or another, I couldn’t finish it. Apparently the 6+ years between now and then made a difference, because not only did I get through the book, I actually liked it this time around.
I’m still most intrigued by the social and cultural elements of the novel, and I liked trying to make sense of the piggies as the xenologers did (though I was annoyed by how things were made clear the end; the journey was more satifying than the destination). I feel that Ender is a better developed character in this novel, and the work as a whole is more complex than Ender’s Game. It certainly feels very different from the preceding novel, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Speaker for the Dead is a less comfortable book for me to read, but I am trying to get out of my comfort zone here, so no complaints there.
In other book news, I’m still going through 1919 (at least when I do pick it up, I read it in huge chunks), and I just started reading Paul Bowles’s The Sheltering Sky. Next on the list is Orson Scott Card’s Xenocide.
Posted on 07 February 2006 - 21:29 | No Comments