Anna
This book has all the themes that I usually avoid: pathological families, unhappy marriages, numerous children; and yet, I'm so happy to have trusted Franzen's recommendation on this one. That Stead's been allowed to fall into obscurity is truly criminal — she's a writer in complete control, who trusts the readers' judgement and respects their intellect. Her prose is sublime; her ear for dialogue in particular is exceptional – she beats all of the writers I know with the exception of maybe Twain.
It's been several weeks since I finished this book and I'm still thinking about it — or more accurately, still absolutely seething over the steaming pile of garbage that was Sam Pollit, the titular ‘man who loved children'. Despite the fact that Stead's characters are very clearly the products of their specific era — the early 20th century — with lives largely determined by the strict moral order of that time, Sam Pollit is an immediately recognisable archetype of an absolute horror of a man. Transplanted to our day and age he'd be posting selfies with tigers and pictures of himself playing ball with little kids in Africa while ruining some poor girl's life and spending someone else's money. He might sound different now and have slightly updated ideas but he's still undeservedly winning at everything. Stead paints him fairly, letting him spout his hair-raising ideas with complete objectivity on her part, which only intensifies the horror of the reader. He's the type of guy your mother would've warned you about, if only she knew how to spot him.
It's insane that we as a society still not only give a total pass to men like Sam Pollit for the kind of immaturity and shortsightedness that is not at all accepted in women, but that we still actively reward them. Sam Pollit is allowed to run Henny's life into complete ruin, and still he emerges from it unscathed, and with no lessons learned. And as hard as it is to sympathise with a woman who repeatedly threatens to murder her own children and who calls them gutter rats, I'm so totally, completely Team Henny. The parts that deal with her intuitive, unspoken truce with Louie are some of the most touching and profound in the entire book — I kept rooting for their sisterhood to prevail.
The strangest thing happened while I was reading this book. It was chosen by my book club and I had not googled anything about it nor about its author ahead of reading. And yet as I read it I couldn't help but picture the author a certain very particular way and lo and behold! he happens to look exactly like what I imagined: a frumpy uncle type whom you wouldn't want to be in any way lewd in your presence. The kind of guy who finds Henry James' cunnilingus metaphors titillating and who uses phrases like “go fuck a duck” (gasp!).
Boy, did this book age badly. The prose is mostly quite wonderful (though I did find myself shockingly thinking “wow I'm so bored with alliteration” towards the end of it [!!]) but its references feel extremely dated (it was written in the 70s, it turns out).
Also, I can't help but think that all of Gass'es somewhat incoherent struggles with sex writing will have been voided with the discovery of Nicholson Baker.
Giving up on this one. I can't manage yet another Ocampo story.
There are a couple of early gems here but I'm now halfway through and I feel like I've been reading randomly generated placeholder text for the last 150 pages. Was Ocampo drunk? There's a struggle with continuity and cohesion. And while I do want to be surprised and shocked as a reader, Ocampo's surprises are just not interesting. They're not weird and quirky, they're annoying and draining.
The structure was intricate and the prose sang. I was greatly entertained.
Despite the preposterous plot, the heroine was completely believable. How did Chee do that? Also, fiercely feminist! I loved her so much I might be having separation anxiety. This whole book is one big celebration of female freedom and power and that's very rare and amazing.
I feel bad giving this only 3 stars because Hallberg is a hell of a writer (I very rarely feel envious of other people's talents but man, he makes it look so effortless and new). The first 500-600 pages alone were worth all the hype. Unfortunately, it kinda falls apart after that.
I get it, it's hard to maintain perfect control over a 900+ page monster that includes a panoramic cast of characters, multiple timelines and painstakingly researched historical background. But Hallberg's characters at some point lose all definition. They also become boring :/ The plot drags on and on and on in the end (which in this case is roughly 300 pages long) and the only big reveal – whose voice it was that opened the story – is just not worth the carpal tunnel. The old adage that every sentence in a story should move the plot forward applies to at least 30% of this.
Disappointed, but will give Hallberg all the chances anyway because he's a super talented dude.
Just wonderful. Safina really delves deep into the ‘who' of animals; there are so many animal anecdotes here that are just jaw-dropping (my favourite one involved a tiger stalking his human enemy for months; I'm also very unlikely to ever kill another wasp because SOME OF THEM CAN RECOGNISE YOUR FACE : ). Although he might be taking things a little bit too far sometimes (for example when arguing that wolves' fear of humans could be the outcome of a cost-benefit calculation and not say, an evolutionary repulsion to our smell) his main point is fair and important: that it's just as scientifically wrong to anthropomorphise animals as it is to do the opposite (objectify?).Safina definitely has a huge beef with animal scientists who seek the ‘theory of mind' in animals, then proceed to hail it as proof of their lack of sentience when the animals invariably fail their terribly designed experiments. He spends several incisive (and highly amusing) chapters on discrediting their efforts. It makes for an entertaining read but I felt like he never really gets to the definition of the ToM that actually matters – of it being the opposite of solipsism, so: not just of recognising that others have minds, but acknowledging that those minds have the capacity to feel that is similar to one's own (this surely takes years to develop even in humans, if it develops at all). These are all minor (and possibly entirely my own) issues in a deeply satisfying whole.A word of warning though: this book will leave you in a world of sadness. The author is a conservationist and conservationists, like climatologists, don't have much to be optimistic about. Large parts of the book are heart-breakingly sad and a proof that humanity truly is the cartoonish villain of the natural world. Though the book ends on a positive note, it's a very brief and forced-sounding positive note that is the opposite of reassuring.
Has there ever been an author more brutal than Yates? Yeesh... I'm trying to find something to counter the bleakness of this. I guess the fact that Yates did not take his own life means there's a chance he didn't actually possess some secret knowledge of the ineluctable hopelessness of human life and so we can all calmly proceed, whilst thinking hard about life/choices.
Just like all the classic Gladwells, this has been quoted and discussed and referred to so much that it's lost its wow factor entirely.
Still though, I believe we're morally obliged to work through our biases, so this is an essential resource / reference point.
Also, I will never forget the feminist bank teller case — everyone fails on this one!
Tula Lotay's artwork is magnificent. I'd totally get most of the panels framed.
Ellis' writing's solid as usual. I love the whole universe-as-a-quantum-computer-simulation theory so this book rubbed all my mental sweet spots.
The only thing I didn't love was the Professor Night storyline — I suppose it's some kind of a Dr Who reference? I think I would like to live in a version of the universe where Dr Who doesn't exist. I guess it might be a reference to the original Supreme series which I haven't read. Those parts and characters brought nothing into this story though.
Loved it. Toews writes with wit and warmth and consistent humour that makes you giggle despite the uber-depressing subject matter. I loved how eloquent the characters were — I kept googling the authors and poems and tunes that they were referencing and added a bunch of books to my to-read list as a result, which always means extra props to the book.
I took a star off for all the parts where characters talked about their dreams — can't deal with this, my eyes immediately glaze over. I have yet to read a book where this is handled well/justified.
Hardwick writes with great eloquence and clarity and a feminist spirit. Those essays are nearly faultless and filled with awesome quotables that kept my highlighter engaged.
I wish I'd discovered Hardwick's literary criticism while close-reading Ibsen at uni. I really, really hated Ibsen then. Perhaps with Hardwick's sympathetic analysis at hand I would've had an easier time seeing through my distaste for the standards of the era which he wrote about, and seen his female characters with a bit more compassion.
Also, a reminder: this guy had 18 year old girls throwing themselves at him throughout his writing career: