The List: 2011

1.  Scorpions:  The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices by Noah Feldman, 07 January 2011.
2.  Gilgamesh:  A Verse Narrative by Herbert Mason, 11 January 2011.
3.  Chinatown Beat by Henry Chang, 28 January 2011.
4.  Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov, 31 January 2011.
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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

★★★★☆

Really 3.5 stars.  A very entertaining mystery novel.  I found the gore a bit excessive and often over-the-top, but in the end the story holds compactly together.  If I hadn't known that this was the first novel of a series, I might have had more hesitations regarding the conclusion, but as is, I'm interested to learn what else awaits this dreary world Larsson crafted.

One issue I found interesting:  the role of the women in the novel.  The epigraphs that accompany the intro page to each part of the novel list statistics that deal with violence against women in Sweden.  The murderer has a very perverse idea of women.  This is a trope shared to varying degrees by several other male characters in the novel. 

I wonder then did Larsson intend for the portrait of his protagonist Blomkvist's relationships with women to seem so sexist?  To a certain degree, I think yes.  Then again, it also relates not only to the actions of the protagonist but also to Larsson's own use of language as an omniscient narrator (and here I make sure to note that many things are inevitably lost in translation - but I doubt this element of the narration is the unfortunate product of Swedish-to-English rebirth).  It's something about the narration that gave me consistent pause, the way the women of this novel all but throw themselves at Blomkvist's feet, as if in submission to some irresistible sexual Adonis.  And likewise the way his actions toward them are described.  Did Larsson produce an intentional or accidental irony?

In the end, I would recommend this novel for rainy days or long trips.  It came in nicely during my recent holiday trips.  It's slow in parts and perhaps the true denouement occurs too early in the plot to sustain the same degree of interest over the final 1/4 of the text, but it's still a finely crafted novel and well worth the attention of mystery fans in particular.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

★★☆ ☆ ☆

I read this book on the urging of two friends.  Our interests tend to be relatively similar, but this book has proven to be a major divergence from that pattern.

It is mind-numbingly slow, has pretty language in parts but tends toward the pedantic, and ultimately feels frustratingly unrewarding and even pointless.  I usually have ample words to describe the books I read, but this one leaves me at a loss.

I'm left scratching my head and wondering how this book garned so much popularity when it was first published almost five years ago.  Whatever allure this books holds for so many people, I'm missing it.

The List: 2010

1.  The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, 03 January 2010.
2.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, 03 January 2010.
3.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling, 22 May 2010.
4.  Almost Catholic:  An Appreciation of the History, Practice, & Mystery of Ancient Faith by Jon M. Sweeney, 12 June 2010.
5.  Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas, 09 July 2010.
6.  The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin, 13 November 2010
7.  Becoming Justice Blackmun:  Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey by Linda Greenhouse, 25 November 2010.
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BRONZE

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GOLD

In the Beginning

This blog is my attempt to rekindle my spark for reading.  I study literature and want to pursue graduate studies in the same field, but right now I struggle to finish the books I begin.  Things always seem to get in the way and I get distracted.  So I've made myself a resolution for 2010.  My goal is to read 100 books this coming year. 

I understand the reality.  I'm a college student headed into my senior year, I'm working part time, and things are bound to get hectic.  But I'm still committed to this little experiment.  My inspiration is my favorite professor, who mourns the loss of the love for books and reading.  I'm out not so much to prove him wrong, because I think what he says is unfortunately true.  Rather, I'm trying to prove that I'm not one of those people.  I don't want to be one of those people.

I've made myself a bargain.  A rating system that looks like this:

50 Books = Bronze
75 Books = Silver
100 Books = Gold

I think that's reasonable.  This is going to take a huge time commitment.  Luckily I'm taking lots of literature classes so I can also factor those books.  Otherwise, it's going to be random choices from my bookshelf and the library.

I'm going to have to do something that I've always done:  read multiple books at once.  The first series is:

Dostoevsky, Fyodor.  The Brothers Karamazov.
Kostova, Elizabeth.  The Historian.
Larsson, Stieg.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Walls, Jeannette.  The Glass Castle.
Woolf, Virginia.  Mrs. Dalloway.

Whew!  I read a recommendation that said when you're attempting to finish a large sum of books you should "read paragraphs and not words."  But I don't want to be that type of reader either.  I don't want to do this just for a title, to say that I read a shitload of books.  I want to enjoy the process and really take in what I'm reading.  So that's going to make it a bit more difficult for me.  I want to read a lot of books and take my time, both at once.

But, I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I think I'm ready.  I want this to be more fun than a chore.   

It starts tomorrow.  I wish myself luck and determination.