Wow! I was thinking that it's been a while since I wrote something in this blog, but had no idea it had been more than a month... Time flies when you're engaged, I suppose. You'd think that in a month, I'd have a fair amount to write about, but, sadly, no. Engagement also eats up a lot of reading time.
So... in the last month, I decided, for about the 10th time to try read Devaney's "Chaotic Dynamical Systems." And, for the 10th time, failed miserably for lack of real analysis skills. So, I looked on Amazon, and, lo & behold, he's written a book aimed more at undergrads ("A First Course in Chaotic Dynamical Systems"), with a lot more details filled in. I must say, I'm having a blast, stretching my mind with mathematics in a way that I just haven't done in the past several years. The book is engaging (for a math book), and relatively friendly to the non-math-major, at least so far (about halfway in).
I also read Park's follow-up to A Princess in Roumania, titled the Tourmaline. It's an interesting world that he's created, in which Roumania is a medium-size power, and Germany and Turkey are the major powers. Park does a great job filling in the details just fast enough so that you stay oriented, but slowly enough that you feel like you're learning it with the characters, and you always feel that there's a lot you don't know yet.
I read more of the Iliad, but nothing deep to say there.
I'm in the middle of Kugel's How to Read the Bible. I'm finding it fascinating, but I'm not sure how well it hangs together as a book, rather than a disparate collection of chapters. Each chapter (other than the first) follows a similar schema: recount a bible story, then talk about the view of the ancient interpreters, then how modern scholars view the same story. (E.g. the old view of the Babel story is that it's about mankind over-reaching, trying to get disobey God's will, and being punished. The more modern view is that it's an etiological tale, to explain the origin of Babylonian ziggurats, why Jews don't build them, and the origin of the many different languages in the world.) Great stuff. But every so often, he throws in a comment that implies that he's building a structure around the questions of faith in the Bible, given modern knowledge of its development, and I think he's not really getting there -- the book wouldn't be significantly different if you read the chapters in random order. However, I'm only halfway through, so we'll see how it progresses.
I've given up on the Three Kingdoms. Maybe someday I'll give it a try again, but the repetitiveness just got to me in the end.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Wake up Sir, A Princess in Roumania
Jenna got Wake Up, Sir out of the library for me, knowing I'm a big Wodehouse fan. Ames is not really channeling Wodehouse in this story, so much as he's using Wodehouse as a jumping-off point to do his own thing. His main character, Allan, is a Jewish author, who's published one book, but is having trouble on his second. When he comes into some money from a lawsuit, he hires a valet named Jeeves, and proceeds to get into trouble.
The Jeeves in Wake Up is actually pretty clearly imaginary, which is a pointer to Ames's literary goals -- he's not just Bertie Wooster to America. Allan is an unreliable narrator, a drunk with frequent blackouts and psychotic episodes, and Jeeves, being imaginary, can't really help him out of his problems. (Allan's also an intellectual -- his favorite books are Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, where Bertie can barely make his way through cheap mystery fiction).
But this was also the crux of why I couldn't finish the novel. It's a comic novel, and I feel uncomfortable laughing at a guy who clearly belongs in a mental institution. The humor is often cruel (Allan gets into a fight and gets his nose broken), which Wodehouse always avoids. Bertie is sometimes threatened by, e.g. Spode, but the threats are never carried through, and that's why they remain funny.
Paul Park's A Princess in Roumania is a YA-ish novel. It's not really marketed at YA, but that seems to be its focus, as a coming-of-age story of a girl suddenly transported to a magical Europe. As such, it's a much easier read than Park's previous novels, like the Starbridge Chronicles, which were incredibly dense. This is a much simpler novel than those, which is a pity, but it's still very satisfying. Park's use of magic is very elusive -- there's a sense that it's very mysterious, which I really liked. Unfortunately, it's book 1 of a tetralogy, so it's difficult to say much about the overall shape of the series at this early point.
The Jeeves in Wake Up is actually pretty clearly imaginary, which is a pointer to Ames's literary goals -- he's not just Bertie Wooster to America. Allan is an unreliable narrator, a drunk with frequent blackouts and psychotic episodes, and Jeeves, being imaginary, can't really help him out of his problems. (Allan's also an intellectual -- his favorite books are Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, where Bertie can barely make his way through cheap mystery fiction).
But this was also the crux of why I couldn't finish the novel. It's a comic novel, and I feel uncomfortable laughing at a guy who clearly belongs in a mental institution. The humor is often cruel (Allan gets into a fight and gets his nose broken), which Wodehouse always avoids. Bertie is sometimes threatened by, e.g. Spode, but the threats are never carried through, and that's why they remain funny.
Paul Park's A Princess in Roumania is a YA-ish novel. It's not really marketed at YA, but that seems to be its focus, as a coming-of-age story of a girl suddenly transported to a magical Europe. As such, it's a much easier read than Park's previous novels, like the Starbridge Chronicles, which were incredibly dense. This is a much simpler novel than those, which is a pity, but it's still very satisfying. Park's use of magic is very elusive -- there's a sense that it's very mysterious, which I really liked. Unfortunately, it's book 1 of a tetralogy, so it's difficult to say much about the overall shape of the series at this early point.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Iliad, Metamorphoses, God of Small Things
Lots of serious reading this week, which is always a nice feeling.
I got through the end of book 13 of the Iliad, which was just great. It's the kind of section that makes me glad to read it in Greek, a feeling that's all too rare in most of book 13. Most of the book is a lot of random fighting, without much memorable going on -- it's really there to set the Greeks up for the failures that will bring Achilles back into the fight. At the same time, Homer doesn't really want to show the Greeks being beaten by the Trojans (I guess his audience wouldn't have been very happy with sections like that; plus, he has to work within the mythological framework, in which none of the major Greek heroes perished in this part of the Trojan War).
But here, we have some magnificent similes, like the one which compares the Trojans to the surf -- gleaming white, and coming in wave after wave, and making noise, and all in two quick lines. We get some great speeches by Hector, and the speeches always sound good in the original; the swift dactylic line pushes the listener forward in a way you just can't get in English.
In Ovid, we get the epilog to the Phaethon story, in which his sisters mourn until they turn to trees, his lover Cygnus turns into a swan, then Sun (his father) returns to the sky, and everything returns to normal. It really does feel like an afterthought, after the long main story.
God of Small Things is a gorgeous novel by Arundhati Roy. It's very intricate, with a plot that literally revolves around a central event that's not revealed until the end. The chapters swirl around, some from before the event, some from after, but getting closer and closer until the final revelation. Roy puts in enough foreshadowing that the ending is not really a surprise, but little enough so that it's still shattering when it happens.
I was also blown away by her language. She's one of the few authors in my experience who writes from a child's perspective and makes it feel real. The only other example that I can think of is the opening parts of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
I got through the end of book 13 of the Iliad, which was just great. It's the kind of section that makes me glad to read it in Greek, a feeling that's all too rare in most of book 13. Most of the book is a lot of random fighting, without much memorable going on -- it's really there to set the Greeks up for the failures that will bring Achilles back into the fight. At the same time, Homer doesn't really want to show the Greeks being beaten by the Trojans (I guess his audience wouldn't have been very happy with sections like that; plus, he has to work within the mythological framework, in which none of the major Greek heroes perished in this part of the Trojan War).
But here, we have some magnificent similes, like the one which compares the Trojans to the surf -- gleaming white, and coming in wave after wave, and making noise, and all in two quick lines. We get some great speeches by Hector, and the speeches always sound good in the original; the swift dactylic line pushes the listener forward in a way you just can't get in English.
In Ovid, we get the epilog to the Phaethon story, in which his sisters mourn until they turn to trees, his lover Cygnus turns into a swan, then Sun (his father) returns to the sky, and everything returns to normal. It really does feel like an afterthought, after the long main story.
God of Small Things is a gorgeous novel by Arundhati Roy. It's very intricate, with a plot that literally revolves around a central event that's not revealed until the end. The chapters swirl around, some from before the event, some from after, but getting closer and closer until the final revelation. Roy puts in enough foreshadowing that the ending is not really a surprise, but little enough so that it's still shattering when it happens.
I was also blown away by her language. She's one of the few authors in my experience who writes from a child's perspective and makes it feel real. The only other example that I can think of is the opening parts of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Metamorphoses, Silence, Three Kingdoms, Queen and Country
I'm having a tough time mustering the interest to push through Three Kingdoms. A lot of the warring is very repetitive, and there isn't that much else there. It's not really fair to bring Aristotelian aesthetics to a discussion of a Chinese novel, but it's hard not to think of his discussion of the Greek poets who think that all you need to do to write an epic is to take the whole life story of some hero and throw it onto the page. No, says Aristotle, you need to trim it down, and focus on the story you want to tell. Three Kingdoms just wanders all over the place, which would make more sense if it were historically accurate, but apparently the author took liberties on that front as well.
I also read Thomas Perry's Silence this weekend. I think he's really jumped the shark -- the early Jane Whitefield novels are brilliant, but here he's just going through the motions. He's got a thing for a person who goes into hiding and completely changes his/her identity. But he's really struggling to come up with a motivation for it by now. Why would a woman go into hiding for 6 years, throwing away her whole life, instead of going to the police? Perry never really answers that question. The ending of the book suggests that he thought of it, but it was too late to change the novel, and so he gives a totally throw-away answer.
Saving the best for last, I also read more of the Metamorphoses this weekend, finishing up the story of Phaethon. There's not much to say about it, except that Ovid's word-play dazzles. I think he's my favorite Latin poet -- Catullus probably has my favorite individual lines, but I enjoy reading Ovid more on the whole.
I almost forgot Red Panda, the last (for a while) of the Queen and Country comics. Compared to the first Q & C book (which is reviewed somewhere in this blog), it was wonderful to see Tara's return to comics. The comic form really suits Rucka's talents, where you can have long stretches with no dialogue. Sometimes, three panels of two protagonists sitting near each other, saying nothing, can be incredibly eloquent. I'm still hoping that Patriot Games, the 2nd Q & C book is as good as the comics. Hope springs eternal, as they say...
I also read Thomas Perry's Silence this weekend. I think he's really jumped the shark -- the early Jane Whitefield novels are brilliant, but here he's just going through the motions. He's got a thing for a person who goes into hiding and completely changes his/her identity. But he's really struggling to come up with a motivation for it by now. Why would a woman go into hiding for 6 years, throwing away her whole life, instead of going to the police? Perry never really answers that question. The ending of the book suggests that he thought of it, but it was too late to change the novel, and so he gives a totally throw-away answer.
Saving the best for last, I also read more of the Metamorphoses this weekend, finishing up the story of Phaethon. There's not much to say about it, except that Ovid's word-play dazzles. I think he's my favorite Latin poet -- Catullus probably has my favorite individual lines, but I enjoy reading Ovid more on the whole.
I almost forgot Red Panda, the last (for a while) of the Queen and Country comics. Compared to the first Q & C book (which is reviewed somewhere in this blog), it was wonderful to see Tara's return to comics. The comic form really suits Rucka's talents, where you can have long stretches with no dialogue. Sometimes, three panels of two protagonists sitting near each other, saying nothing, can be incredibly eloquent. I'm still hoping that Patriot Games, the 2nd Q & C book is as good as the comics. Hope springs eternal, as they say...
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Winter of the Wolf Moon, Iliad, Invincible
I've read a few books in the loooong while since I last wrote in this blog. A whole bunch of Three Kingdoms, but I don't have much to say about it. I'll probably post more after I read the next 10 chapters.
After some posts on quartertothree.com, I decided to give Invincible a try. Essentially, it's working very similar territory to Astro City, playing with the concept of of superheroes, and a world in which there are many superheroes all flying around. There's a huge twist around issue 10, and, even knowing it was coming, I had no idea what it was going to be. But, after that, the book sort of lost its momentum. Our hero has just had his entire world collapse around him, and the next couple of issues present that really well. But then, life goes on, and it's not quite so good -- I guess I kept hoping for something with the impact of that "twist" issue, and there wasn't anything.
I'm reading more of book 13 of the Iliad, where there's some inconclusive back-and-forth between the Trojans and the Greeks. I'm actually quite enjoying it -- some nice Homeric similes, like one likening an arrow to beans been blown by a winnowing fan. In addition, we get some nice alliteration, and the way Homer switches back and forth between the combatants is really beautiful.
I read the second Alex McKnight book this weekend. Just like the first, the big climax is anti-climactic, though in a different way. Alex gets involved in a mob drug operation, and the mob boss kidnaps him to get some info. In a Robert Crais book, for example, this would lead to a huge showdown, lots of bullets flying. Instead, though, the mob boss just leaves him to freeze -- Alex is just too small-fry -- and that's the end of the confrontation. They go their separate ways, the mafia guy presumably goes on dealing, and that's it. Somehow, the book still feels satisfying, and certainly makes more sense than if Alex had been able to take down this top-level mafia guy.
After some posts on quartertothree.com, I decided to give Invincible a try. Essentially, it's working very similar territory to Astro City, playing with the concept of of superheroes, and a world in which there are many superheroes all flying around. There's a huge twist around issue 10, and, even knowing it was coming, I had no idea what it was going to be. But, after that, the book sort of lost its momentum. Our hero has just had his entire world collapse around him, and the next couple of issues present that really well. But then, life goes on, and it's not quite so good -- I guess I kept hoping for something with the impact of that "twist" issue, and there wasn't anything.
I'm reading more of book 13 of the Iliad, where there's some inconclusive back-and-forth between the Trojans and the Greeks. I'm actually quite enjoying it -- some nice Homeric similes, like one likening an arrow to beans been blown by a winnowing fan. In addition, we get some nice alliteration, and the way Homer switches back and forth between the combatants is really beautiful.
I read the second Alex McKnight book this weekend. Just like the first, the big climax is anti-climactic, though in a different way. Alex gets involved in a mob drug operation, and the mob boss kidnaps him to get some info. In a Robert Crais book, for example, this would lead to a huge showdown, lots of bullets flying. Instead, though, the mob boss just leaves him to freeze -- Alex is just too small-fry -- and that's the end of the confrontation. They go their separate ways, the mafia guy presumably goes on dealing, and that's it. Somehow, the book still feels satisfying, and certainly makes more sense than if Alex had been able to take down this top-level mafia guy.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Metamorphoses
Finished up through 2.260 today, which is most of the story of Phaethon. Lots of lists. Mountains that get burned, rivers that get burned, blah blah. I get that it's cute and clever that he could fit all those names into the meter, but it didn't really do anything for me.
Luckily, the other bits, with the constellations moving out the way, and the dactyls representing the horses' speed, etc, were really good and a lot of fun.
Luckily, the other bits, with the constellations moving out the way, and the dactyls representing the horses' speed, etc, were really good and a lot of fun.
Monday, February 4, 2008
The Fourth Bear
I was feeling a bit sick this weekend, so I decided to go for something light. Fortunately, I had Jasper Fforde's The Fourth Bear on my bookshelf. I had liked The Big Overeasy, but it wasn't up to the standard of the Thursday Next books, so I was a bit hesitant on starting this book -- would it be even worse, starting a slide into dullness? It just seemed that nursery rhymes aren't enough to carry the weight of a full story.
Well, it seems that Mr. Fforde agrees -- he's started playing the game of throwing in literary references all over the place, from Dorian Gray as an evil car salesman to David Copperfield as a police lieutenant. The best praise I can give the book is the I completely forgot my stomach ailment as soon as I got two pages in. There's a real art to writing light, funny fiction, and Fforde has definitely nailed it.
Well, it seems that Mr. Fforde agrees -- he's started playing the game of throwing in literary references all over the place, from Dorian Gray as an evil car salesman to David Copperfield as a police lieutenant. The best praise I can give the book is the I completely forgot my stomach ailment as soon as I got two pages in. There's a real art to writing light, funny fiction, and Fforde has definitely nailed it.
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