I’d Name My Dodo “Quaffle”: The Book List
Finally, an update to the book list. It’s been a long time in coming – nearly two months since the last book list entry. I’m unsure if I’ll even list the book I’ve read in the correct order (although, to be fair, I haven’t read that many books since then). I am, however, only two books behind where I was this time of year, and my reading has suddenly picked up considerably. I have discovered a new series that is sure to propel me into 2006-2007 book list territory.
I recently finished Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth and Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel. Let’s summarize my ratings: read Gilbert, ditch Meyer, ditch Follett and snatch up Fforde as soon as possible. Read Gilbert because he doesn’t profess to tell us how to be happy but tells us why we’re never as happy as we imagined our future selves to be; it’s a good lesson in humanity and something to keep in mind as we try to predict our futures. Ditch Meyer because this hack has already made enough money (and thank god that I borrowed this book and didn’t pay for it) and shimmering vampires is a really, really stupid idea. Ditch Follett because he’s a boring writer and wouldn’t know medieval life if it bit him in the ass. Snatch up Fforde because it’s bound to be the most creative, inventive piece of fiction that you’ve read in a while.
The Eyre Affair was recommended to me by my good Dyn-o-mite! friend and now-bridesmaid L (not the same bridesmaid-saga College friend L; Dyn-o-mite! L is probably going to get scathing looks from College L at the wedding). Dyn-o-mite! L is my Harry Potter buddy outside of the family; in the last few years, she joined us for the midnight releases of the last few books. I was hesitant at first given the “Eyre” part of the equation. I do not like Victorian literature, and find the Brontë sisters and their Gothic writings to be insufferable at best. I much prefer, to my great surprise, the postmodern prequel Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (keeping in mind that I find Victorian and postmodern literature to be a special kind of hell for a medievalist like myself).
My fears were unfounded; the novel takes place in an alternate 1985 where the Crimean War still rages, England is a police state, and Richard III is played every Friday night in Thursday’s home town of Swindon, complete with audience participation a la Rocky Horror Picture Show. It is the last fact that made me fall in love with this book: if there’s one revisionist history I like to follow, it’s Richard III’s – a fairly good king who was not the monster Shakespeare makes him to be, I have sympathy for the family misfit who was probably the only one could’ve ended the War of the Roses had he been given a legitimate chance.
The book’s 1985 is extremely contradictory to our own; had we been this advanced in 1985, who knows what we’d be up to today. I won’t spoil the book, but suffice it to say that time travel is possible, entering a book is probable, and having a dodo for a pet is commonplace. It helps, of course, if you’ve read Jane Eyre. “Was that the one with Mr. Darcy?” IP asked after confirming that he had read Jane Eyre during my recommendation of this book to him.
“Nope, that’s Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen,” I responded. “Mr. Rochester instead of Darcy.”
“Damn,” IP replied, unperturbed. “They’re all the same.”
“No kidding,” I answered. You don’t have that problem with distinguishing Shakespeare from Marlowe from Kyd.
(I realize that Austen is not Victorian literature and she is tough to classify; however, the pairings off that happen in Austen’s books and the Brontës’ books can kind of muddy the memory waters if you’re not into this type of literature.)
This book, though, is a lit geek’s dream. Police state as the obvious deal breaker, I wouldn’t mind living in a place where people were passionate enough about literature to riot for it, raise money to rescue a beloved (though not by me) literary heroine, and memorize Richard III. The prose is witty, intelligent and straightforward; the plot requires an enormous suspension of disbelief that we all do anyway when we watch a paleontologist living in Manhattan who never seems to do any fieldwork or research, yet lives like a king; the adventure is entertaining and hilarious, a nice sly wink to the literature nerds around the world. If you like wordplay, adventure, intelligence and pride yourself on your literary prowess, read it: you won’t regret it. Though you may find yourself wishing for your own Will-Speak.
Barnes and Noble will soon get an order from me for the rest of the Thursday Next series. For now, though, I’m reading Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, which promises to be a good book if not a tad depressing.
Onto the book list:
Finished:
1) Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern Germany by Steven E. Ozment
2) Women at the Beginning - Origin Myths from the Amazons to the Virgin Mary by Patrick J. Geary
3) Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
4) A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts by Robert Bolt
5) Lisey’s Story by Stephen King
6) 1776 by David McCullough
7) The Savage Detectives: A Novel by Roberto Bolaño (Translation by Natasha Wimmer)
8) The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
9) Duma Key by Stephen King
10) The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
11) Me by Katharine Hepburn
12) The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs
13) The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
14) Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
15) Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
16) The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde
Re-read:
Empty
Currently Reading:
1) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2) Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes by Eamon Duffy
3) The Aeneid by Virgil (Translation by Robert Fagles)
Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Boyfriend, or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):
1) People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
2) Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn by William J. Mann
3) I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
