I love Margaret Atwood, but Oryx and Crake was just too gritty for my taste. This was compounded by the fact that I listened to it on audio. Hearing the graphic descriptions was even worse than reading it. This was my fifth Atwood, and by far my least favorite.
The narrator is Jimmy, code-named Snowman. Crake is a sort of Dr. Moreau figure, while Oryx is a woman caught between the two. I don’t want to give away too many details for those who still want to read it, but if you’re squeamish about graphic s*xu*l situations (including child p*r*o*raphy), I would advise against it. I didn’t get why it had to have that element to the story. I also wondered why the title of the book was named that way, but in the end, I guess it was because Oryx and Crake were the two most influential figures in Jimmy’s life.
I would recommend reading other Atwoods before this one. The Handmaid’s Tale,Cat’s Eye, and The Penelopiad are my favorites so far.
I knew I would probably enjoy The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle because it’s about a girl growing up in a small town in Colorado — this girl did the same.
Alice Winston lives on a horse ranch in the desert with her father and reclusive mother, while her older sister Nona has run off with a cowboy riding the rodeo circuit. With her sister gone, Alice’s father struggles to make the ranch profitable by boarding the horses of the wealthier women in town. It’s a lot of work for just the two of them, and somehow they make do for awhile. But all of them miss Nona and can’t understand why she’d leave the family and the ranch.
Meanwhile, Alice is dealing with being accepted at school and recovering from the death of a classmate. She experiences her first kiss and her first crush. She tries to make sense of the adults around her. I sympathized with Alice and winced at the all too familiar pains of growing up. I rooted for things to go her way. Sadly, however, life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan. Sometimes we just have to accept the way things are.
Dolce Bellezza is hosting a second Japanese literature challenge from July 30, 2008 through January 30, 2009. I enjoyed the first challenge immensely as all three of the books I read were excellent! Bellezza gives some great ideas for books to read at her site. Just click on the icon for more information.
I’m not sure what I’m reading yet, but I know I’ll be participating. The most likely authors will be Shusaku Endo, Haruki Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto, or Nobel prize winners Kawabata or Oe. If you’re participating also, check out my reviews from the first challenge. I read some great books!
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn No traveler returns, – HAMLET
Lin Enger’s debut novel is a modern take on Hamlet, but with a few differences from the original. Even though I’m very familiar with the play, I found that Undiscovered Country surprisingly kept me in suspense throughout. There were just enough differences to keep me more than interested in the novel.
Set in wintry Minnesota, Jesse finds his father in the woods — dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. While the local law enforcement thinks it’s a closed case, Jesse refuses to believe that his father committed suicide and sets out to prove it. Of course there’s a suspicious uncle in the story as well as an ‘Ophelia’, but it doesn’t always follow the ’script,’ so there is that element of suspense to the tale.
Enger’s descriptions of the starkly cold winters in Minnesota really add to the atmosphere of the book, and his writing of the characters, though familiar, seem very real. We feel Jesse’s angst, just as we did Hamlet’s. We want justice, just as we do in Shakespeare’s play. I would love to read and compare this book to The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The Dead Father’s Club, both also modern retellings of the famous play.
Lin Enger is the brother of Leif Enger, who wrote Peace Like a River, which I loved, and also So Brave, Young, and Handsome, which I hope to read sometime this year. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for Lin Enger’s next novel as well.
Although I haven’t yet read Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize winning Interpreter of Maladies, after reading Unaccustomed Earth, I can understand why the committee was so impressed with her writing. Her stories of the Bengali immigrant experience were very well developed, and they had closure to them, something I’ve noticed is often times lacking in modern short stories. All the characters in the book have similar backgrounds — high intelligence and high potential — yet each story was unique. Each character was struggling with his or her own set of issues, most of them due to the individuals’ adjustment, or lack thereof, of living in a culture so different from their own or that of their parents.
Themes explored include family, loyalty, duty, and honor. Relationships encountered were father and daughter, husband and wife, brother and sister, roommate to roommate, and childhood friend to childhood friend. Birth, life, marriage, children, divorce, and death. These few stories covered a wide range of experiences of the Bengali immigrant living in America and illustrated well how being Bengali shaped the characters’ choices.
Highly recommended. I will definitely be reading Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake at a later date.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. (Psalm 145:18-19, ESV)
I love Margaret Atwood, but Oryx and Crake was just too gritty for my taste. This was compounded by the fact that I listened to it on audio. Hearing the graphic descriptions was even worse than reading it. This was my fifth Atwood, and by far my least favorite.
I knew I would probably enjoy The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle because it’s about a girl growing up in a small town in Colorado — this girl did the same.
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
Although I haven’t yet read Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize winning Interpreter of Maladies, after reading Unaccustomed Earth, I can understand why the committee was so impressed with her writing. Her stories of the Bengali immigrant experience were very well developed, and they had closure to them, something I’ve noticed is often times lacking in modern short stories. All the characters in the book have similar backgrounds — high intelligence and high potential — yet each story was unique. Each character was struggling with his or her own set of issues, most of them due to the individuals’ adjustment, or lack thereof, of living in a culture so different from their own or that of their parents.
