Thursday 8 September 2016

August Reviews

The Man in the High Castle
Philip K. Dick
1/5
Penguin 01/01/1962 Kindle
Bookclub

To quote the rest of the bookclub: "The Man In The High Castle can take a flying leap". Worst book ever was also bandied about. It was a total disaster of a book. I am amazed that Philip K Dick is described as an unsung genius of his time in the introduction. Nope. Let's actually get into the reasons I would not recommend this book.
It's an alternative history, what if Hitler had won the war? Great idea, and very interesting, interesting enough to be adopted by the TV series. The book is short, which earns it it's single star, but it was difficult to read and difficult to follow in terms of writing style and story arch. Even Dick himself admitted to the unsatisfying ending that he wrote and spent the rest of his life trying to write a closing chapter that would explain. Unfortunately he was unsuccessful. This is the Edwin Drood of SciFi except that he actually handed in this unfinished piece of fiction to publishers who, schmucks that they are bowed and went on to publish it.
In cases like these I can only imagine that the editor couldn't get through it themselves. I spent much of the book feeling lost and not knowing whose side I was meant to be on. I know it's all shades of gray, but things needed to be clearer I was lost. I don't know what the significance was of any of the characters. Apparently everyone was connected, but I was so confused the whole time.

Eat Pray Love
Elizabeth Gilbert
5/5
Bloomsbury 16/11/2009 Kindle
Selfhelp

I am sorry to say that all of the negatives that people feel about this book, the trope of a sad woman going off to find herself, the exploitation of secular spiritualism, the cookie cutter love story. I have to say, they're all wrong.
My personal approach to this story was probably like most of the depressed women who reach out for a tiny piece of inspiration. I am incredibly sad, and I still am, the book didn't save me, it didn't save my life, but much of the thought processes appealed to me. Liz Gilbert is not saccharine, she's incredibly down to earth and empathetic. I was worried that that namaste approach was going to make me hate it but I didn't, and that's because she struggles with her life as much as I do. She get's distracted and is incredibly human.
The story is set out very beautifully and the love story is beautiful, real and touching. I say real because it's not perfect, just like every love story there's some potholes. The only struggle is that I inevitably was reading with a Julia Roberts voice over, which isn't the worst thing in the world... but it is a bit distracting.
I will admit that I think I read this at a very appropriate time for me. But nevertheless it is a well written and interesting exploration of food, language, relationships, freedom, travel and so much more. It's great. I'd even read it again. Maybe I'll read it when I'm happy again and get a new perspective.


Leaving Atocha Station
Ben Lerner
3/5
Granta 02/02/2012 Kindle
Holiday Read

If you were anywhere near me when I started reading this you know the noise I made when thinking about, talking about and reading this little gem. 100 pages took me a shameful 15 days. I should be able to read that it in an afternoon. That's just an indication of why I struggled.
It wasn't until someone pointed out that it is meant to be funny. You're meant to recognise the absurd nature of the character's thought processes that I managed to get through it. I was so close to giving up, but I felt like I needed to finish it because failing to read such a tiny slip of a book would be a new level of being a terrible reader.
I'm frustrated that I needed to be told that it was okay to hate the character, but I just had no sense of humour for the pretentiousness of the thinking even at a ridiculous level. It was also very dense to read because of the subject matter. Talking about art and writing in a deliberately pretentious way is pretty difficult to get through and even though it's meant to be ridiculous, that level of density was too much. I will say that eventually I did find myself chuckling at it, which earns it a 3 star rating.

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