Some book reviews I’ve left on Goodreads.
Kim
I’m sure this is an excellent book, if I could understand it. Kipling stuffs it to the gills with so much colloquialisms and British-Indian cultural in-jokes that I may as well be reading Greek upside down and from the back. Much of the humor and significance is lost on me. It’s not nearly as bad as Salman Rushdie, whose only excuse is that likes to hear (read) himself talk (write); Kipling at least was riding what was probably riding a crest of some post-Dickens craze and moreso wrote what was expected of him.
Contact
There’s a excellent story in Contact, held aloft by Sagan’s competent prose and, paradoxically, the technobabble…technobabble, at least, to an astronomy layman like me.
This story, though, is in bits and pieces, broken up (shattered, you could say) by the author’s ax-grinding. Sagan–God bless him, the poor bastard–it seemed like he tried his darnedest to give religious folk a fair shake, but the result was contrived. There was a proposed idea of balance between the two worlds in Palmer Joss’ character, but I found him mostly uninspiring.
Ellie Arroway, framed as the Greatest Woman to Ever Woman for Women in a Non-Woman Space, is a generally likeable protag who filled nicely the Spunky and Tenacious Female Lead trope. She’s not a Mary Sue, despite what some reviews label her as, because she lacks empathy (she does possess beauty and smarts, the other two broad, key character traits of Mary Sues). Sagan, though, could have pronounced that flaw more boldly. She has a rare moment of introspection too late in the narrative, and she ignores her neglectful attitude until she is forced to come to terms with it through an intrusive family issue. The story would’ve benefited by Sagan replacing Ellie’s mild paranoia with these self-examinations.
On a side note: the film adaptation is different, as those things go, yet it has its moments. Its greatest flaw, for me, was whittling down the interstellar trip by four people, so it was merely a solo trip by Arroway, probably as a means for Jodie Foster’s star power to carry the scene’s full import. There were a lot of interesting narrative bits that were lost by that.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Next-to-zero narrative arc. Slice of life vignettes, but director’s cut length. Pale beige prose. You may get hoodwinked by the didactics offered by the humorless Marxist nerd (Copeland) or the belligerent freeloader (Blount). O’Connor’s Wise Blood is the superior Southern novel, if only by slivers. Motes’ bizarre sermonizing held value in how it elicited apprehension, pathos, and a dash of jollity from the reader. McCullers just kinda took cheap shots.
All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C. S. Lewis, 1922-1927
Interesting peer into the lifestyle of an early 20th century British academic. Lewis has some insights scattered among the nearly interchangeable account of the day’s events (what else would a diary be?). Anything after the first few chapters becomes repetition and would be too monotonous for the casual, non-voyeurist Lewis fan.
The Secret Garden
The anti-Jane Eyre for people who dig nature and don’t care about feminism or overtly religious protags. It’s irksome that we have to look to vintage Brits for a better chance of reading a story that’s actually a great narrative and not having to wade through bloated prose. Also a borderline misuse of semi-anthro animals; it’s forgivable here since it fits the plot, but modern writers carelessly abuse animals (pun?) as a device to portray wholesomeness or honesty. You can ignore some of the dialogue camp, given the time period and the fact that Burnett is making outright child neglect and gaslighting the backdrop for cool magic stuff to happen.
The Brothers Karamazov
Couldn’t/didn’t finish this endless freight train of Russian existentialist verbosity; it asked too much in exchange for uncertain rewards. I couldn’t attach to any of the plot or characters–a switch from Crime and Punishment, which I enjoyed. Maybe down the road I will try again.
A Good Man is Hard to Find
Every compilation of short stories written by a famous author will disclaim that he is “the master of the short story” on the back cover. Publishers feel the need to oversell these types of books, thinking that readers consider them ersatz to the author’s normal length novels that made them famous. This book claims similar but the description is earned, as Flannery’s squirmy Southern grotesqueries are of a quality on par with Bradbury or Lovecraft. Dig it.