For a few blissful weeks, my husband was wrapped up in South of Broad by Pat Conroy, and at night, before we went to sleep, he would suggest that we read in bed together.
I picked up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, hoping he'd take an interest -- I'd heard it was something of a thriller. He wasn't interested.
Any suggestions for a guy busy with school whose wife would love to read in bed with the actual bedside lamp on rather than a head-lamp?
8.20.2010
8.13.2010
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict: Oversimplified Review and Minimal Thoughts
Oversimplified review:
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler
How much you have to think: ★★
Not so much a problem with this book. It's easy reading. But it gets a second star because it will make a lot more sense if you're familiar with Jane Austen books, particularly Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park. Northanger Abbey gets one mention.
Can't-put-it-down factor: ★★★★
I had a really hard time putting it down, but I was far more interested in the 21st-century woman stuck in the 19th century than her getting back to the 21st century.
Emotional magnitude: ★
That star is for me. However, if you've just broken off an engagement, as the main character has, it might be more emotional. Without similar experiences, though, you don't really feel the character's feelings.
Do I recommend it?: ★★
It's definitely not a book you have to read. It's not even up there with the best Jane Austen spin offs I've read. But if you're an Austen buff, it's worth the read.
How favorite it is: ★
This is kind of mean... But it's forgettable. I liked it. There was nothing wrong with it. But it's nowhere near on par with the best books I've ever read. Probably wouldn't hit my top 100.
Minimal thoughts required
I'm really not trying to sound like a book snob. I enjoyed the book a lot. It's a great beach book. I actually got into the book while I was lying on my deck sunbathing because I felt Anna Karenina was too heavy for first thing in the morning (which is noon-ish for me).
Confessions is a great book to follow a really heavy, tough read because your emotions aren't yanked all over the place, you don't have to keep up with a ridiculous number of characters, and if you're an Austen buff, let's be honest -- you're reading about something we've all fantasized a little about.
What I liked most was that it was a different look at the Austen era -- like the fact that they probably didn't smell good and probably had nasty teeth. It points out that bathing in Bath would gross us modern girls out with the open wounds and stuff.
One thing Rigler did a really good job with was surprising you with the heroes. The 21st-century guys, not so much. But the 19th-century hero completely shocked me.
I'll spare the spoiler and let you see for yourself.
A sequel
If you find yourself wondering what's up with the real Jane Mansfield while Courtney Stone is occupying Jane's 19th-century body, never fear. Viera is one step ahead of you:
For even more Viera, see janeaustenaddict.com.
And I'm adding a listing to my Blogs About Books because I found the cover art on this blog. I'm kind of wondering if the professor I took a brief Austen course with is writing it...
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler
How much you have to think: ★★
Not so much a problem with this book. It's easy reading. But it gets a second star because it will make a lot more sense if you're familiar with Jane Austen books, particularly Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park. Northanger Abbey gets one mention.
Can't-put-it-down factor: ★★★★
I had a really hard time putting it down, but I was far more interested in the 21st-century woman stuck in the 19th century than her getting back to the 21st century.
Emotional magnitude: ★
That star is for me. However, if you've just broken off an engagement, as the main character has, it might be more emotional. Without similar experiences, though, you don't really feel the character's feelings.
Do I recommend it?: ★★
It's definitely not a book you have to read. It's not even up there with the best Jane Austen spin offs I've read. But if you're an Austen buff, it's worth the read.
How favorite it is: ★
This is kind of mean... But it's forgettable. I liked it. There was nothing wrong with it. But it's nowhere near on par with the best books I've ever read. Probably wouldn't hit my top 100.
Minimal thoughts required
I'm really not trying to sound like a book snob. I enjoyed the book a lot. It's a great beach book. I actually got into the book while I was lying on my deck sunbathing because I felt Anna Karenina was too heavy for first thing in the morning (which is noon-ish for me).
Confessions is a great book to follow a really heavy, tough read because your emotions aren't yanked all over the place, you don't have to keep up with a ridiculous number of characters, and if you're an Austen buff, let's be honest -- you're reading about something we've all fantasized a little about.
What I liked most was that it was a different look at the Austen era -- like the fact that they probably didn't smell good and probably had nasty teeth. It points out that bathing in Bath would gross us modern girls out with the open wounds and stuff.
One thing Rigler did a really good job with was surprising you with the heroes. The 21st-century guys, not so much. But the 19th-century hero completely shocked me.
I'll spare the spoiler and let you see for yourself.
A sequel
If you find yourself wondering what's up with the real Jane Mansfield while Courtney Stone is occupying Jane's 19th-century body, never fear. Viera is one step ahead of you:
For even more Viera, see janeaustenaddict.com.
And I'm adding a listing to my Blogs About Books because I found the cover art on this blog. I'm kind of wondering if the professor I took a brief Austen course with is writing it...
8.10.2010
Anna Karenina: Oversimplified Review and Initial Observations
Oversimplified review:
How much you have to think: ★★★★★
Individually, the parts aren't that difficult, and it's not verbose and hard to understand. However, if you're going to keep up with all the characters -- and all the different proper, familiar and whatever else names Russians call people -- you have to be paying attention.
Can't-put-it-down factor: ★★
On Gray's Anatomy, Meredith tells Derek after her liver surgery that she started and quit reading Anna Karenina for the 14th time or something like that. Which brings me to this element: You can put it down. You have to want to read it. But if you can power through the agriculture and the Slav Question and the Women Question, they'll help you understand the pre-revolutionary Russian setting better. And the rest is pretty conversational.
Emotional magnitude: ★★★★★
All emotions. All directions. All intensities. I read some on the beach, but at that point, I was more than halfway through. It is the epitome of "heavy reading."
Do I recommend it?: ★★★
Yes and no. If you like literature, yes, by all means, you should read it. But it's not for everyone. If you like quick reads without multiple complex characters and footnotes, it's probably not for you.
How favorite it is: ★★★★★
Definitely in my top 10 now. Possibly top 5.
Spoilers below.
I finally finished Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. And wow. That was a long book.
What? I didn't promise intellectual discussion.
I feel like one blog post is just an insult to Tolstoy, but considering that I didn't read Anna Karenina in an academic setting, and these are just my observations, doing more posts could be even worse. But the whole point of this blog was not to over-analyze books -- just to talk about them in a way that normal people care about.
So just a few observations on what has become a favorite book of mine.
Tolstoy called it his first real novel, but he had already written several works that literary scholars would later call novels. I haven't read any of those, but the introduction to my edition of Anna Karenina talked about his earlier versions.
In those versions, apparently, Tolstoy gave more explanation of Anna. She's not such an enigma. He tells why she married so young, that she confused social status with love, more of what she was thinking as she entered her affair with Vronsky. They also described Karenin as a delightful, handsome man -- almost someone you couldn't understand her not loving. And Anna wasn't attractive.
By the time I read it, Anna is a captivatingly beautiful woman who can make men fall in love with her at will. No one fully understands her -- she doesn't even understand herself. There is very little explanation of her personality or of what she was thinking about Vronsky. Tolstoy gives us a lot of feelings but very little thought. Almost as if she can't even determine what her thoughts are. There was nothing (that I remember -- like I said, it's long) of why she was married to Karenin in the first place. They appear completely mismatched.
I've called Pride and Prejudice the ultimate novel, but Anna Karenina is up there. Definitely. It's obvious that it took years to write and that Tolstoy considered every single detail. Even the translators put painstaking work into their work with the footnotes and which pieces they choose to translate. Most of the characters speak Russian, French and English. Russian is the dominant language; they speak French in high society or if they don't want the servants to understand them. English just gets thrown in every once in a while because they think the British are super refined and fancy -- more so than the French, or so I got the impression.
I assume (I don't know this) Tolstoy just wrote it in all three languages. My translation, which, obviously, was English, had some French parts that were translated in footnotes. Occasionally, an end note would explain that a particular Russian phrase was very difficult to translate into English, and it would explain the phrase in more detail without interrupting the narrative. The footnotes and end notes make the whole book more understandable. This is the version I read:
A surprise: It's not boring at all. You would think 800 pages set a century and a half ago would be boring, but it's not. There are times that I thought, "Really Leo. I don't need to know all about Levin's farming techniques," but ultimately, it helped me understand Levin's character better.
I had heard somewhere that the last 100 pages of Russian novels are about as depressing as it gets. Anna Karenina holds true to that. It's about 75 pages from the end when she throws herself in front of the train.
I had worried less that she would kill herself than that Levin would. I just kept waiting for someone to find him hanged somewhere on his farm. But he actually didn't kill himself, and he and Kitty get a happy ending.
I think Anna went crazy. Between her social ruin, the juxtaposition of her feelings for her two children by two different men, and her overwhelming jealousy -- mostly for invented reasons -- her rational brain stopped working.
I really dislike Countess Lydia. I really want to punch her in the stomach under her yellow shoulders. She was a setback for Karenin after he forgave Anna, encouraging him to be bitter, telling their son Anna was dead, encouraging him not to grant a divorce to which he'd been open before. She's one of those Christians who's more concerned with judging others' behavior than considering the hypocrisy of her own judgment. I don't like those people in real life either.
I can't promise that I'll write more about this book, but it's definitely worthy of more than I've written here.
How much you have to think: ★★★★★
Individually, the parts aren't that difficult, and it's not verbose and hard to understand. However, if you're going to keep up with all the characters -- and all the different proper, familiar and whatever else names Russians call people -- you have to be paying attention.
Can't-put-it-down factor: ★★
On Gray's Anatomy, Meredith tells Derek after her liver surgery that she started and quit reading Anna Karenina for the 14th time or something like that. Which brings me to this element: You can put it down. You have to want to read it. But if you can power through the agriculture and the Slav Question and the Women Question, they'll help you understand the pre-revolutionary Russian setting better. And the rest is pretty conversational.
Emotional magnitude: ★★★★★
All emotions. All directions. All intensities. I read some on the beach, but at that point, I was more than halfway through. It is the epitome of "heavy reading."
Do I recommend it?: ★★★
Yes and no. If you like literature, yes, by all means, you should read it. But it's not for everyone. If you like quick reads without multiple complex characters and footnotes, it's probably not for you.
How favorite it is: ★★★★★
Definitely in my top 10 now. Possibly top 5.
Spoilers below.
I finally finished Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. And wow. That was a long book.
What? I didn't promise intellectual discussion.
I feel like one blog post is just an insult to Tolstoy, but considering that I didn't read Anna Karenina in an academic setting, and these are just my observations, doing more posts could be even worse. But the whole point of this blog was not to over-analyze books -- just to talk about them in a way that normal people care about.
So just a few observations on what has become a favorite book of mine.
Tolstoy called it his first real novel, but he had already written several works that literary scholars would later call novels. I haven't read any of those, but the introduction to my edition of Anna Karenina talked about his earlier versions.
In those versions, apparently, Tolstoy gave more explanation of Anna. She's not such an enigma. He tells why she married so young, that she confused social status with love, more of what she was thinking as she entered her affair with Vronsky. They also described Karenin as a delightful, handsome man -- almost someone you couldn't understand her not loving. And Anna wasn't attractive.
By the time I read it, Anna is a captivatingly beautiful woman who can make men fall in love with her at will. No one fully understands her -- she doesn't even understand herself. There is very little explanation of her personality or of what she was thinking about Vronsky. Tolstoy gives us a lot of feelings but very little thought. Almost as if she can't even determine what her thoughts are. There was nothing (that I remember -- like I said, it's long) of why she was married to Karenin in the first place. They appear completely mismatched.
I've called Pride and Prejudice the ultimate novel, but Anna Karenina is up there. Definitely. It's obvious that it took years to write and that Tolstoy considered every single detail. Even the translators put painstaking work into their work with the footnotes and which pieces they choose to translate. Most of the characters speak Russian, French and English. Russian is the dominant language; they speak French in high society or if they don't want the servants to understand them. English just gets thrown in every once in a while because they think the British are super refined and fancy -- more so than the French, or so I got the impression.
I assume (I don't know this) Tolstoy just wrote it in all three languages. My translation, which, obviously, was English, had some French parts that were translated in footnotes. Occasionally, an end note would explain that a particular Russian phrase was very difficult to translate into English, and it would explain the phrase in more detail without interrupting the narrative. The footnotes and end notes make the whole book more understandable. This is the version I read:
A surprise: It's not boring at all. You would think 800 pages set a century and a half ago would be boring, but it's not. There are times that I thought, "Really Leo. I don't need to know all about Levin's farming techniques," but ultimately, it helped me understand Levin's character better.
I had heard somewhere that the last 100 pages of Russian novels are about as depressing as it gets. Anna Karenina holds true to that. It's about 75 pages from the end when she throws herself in front of the train.
I had worried less that she would kill herself than that Levin would. I just kept waiting for someone to find him hanged somewhere on his farm. But he actually didn't kill himself, and he and Kitty get a happy ending.
I think Anna went crazy. Between her social ruin, the juxtaposition of her feelings for her two children by two different men, and her overwhelming jealousy -- mostly for invented reasons -- her rational brain stopped working.
I really dislike Countess Lydia. I really want to punch her in the stomach under her yellow shoulders. She was a setback for Karenin after he forgave Anna, encouraging him to be bitter, telling their son Anna was dead, encouraging him not to grant a divorce to which he'd been open before. She's one of those Christians who's more concerned with judging others' behavior than considering the hypocrisy of her own judgment. I don't like those people in real life either.
I can't promise that I'll write more about this book, but it's definitely worthy of more than I've written here.
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