Here's a bit 'o fun for the Club Read crowd. When you finish a book, write a review in form of Haiku*.

For our purposes here, our Haiku will be 17 syllables, arranged in lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively. Anyone can do this, one does not need to have acquired a professional poetic license:-) Here's two based on my most recently read books as examples:

By the North Gate: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates

Eden ironic
Rural America seen
Repressed emotions

Four Freedoms by John Crowley

Making planes for war
Ordinary people are
In prose are honored

*we could have a whole conversation on Haiku itself, but the aim here is just to have some fun.

The City & The City by China Mieville (with spoiler!)

Twin cities, standing
Between mountains and the sea;
Each stands between each.

But wouldn't other poetic forms be better for some books? Limericks, for instance:

Saturn's Children by Charles Stross

A courtesan robot named Freya,
...

:-)

oooooo! *claps wildly*

Hey Westford, Cambridge here. I try to offset the length and detail of my reviews with haiku's. Here are some recent offerings.

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Brilliant points of dust/ Dancing in a patch of sun/ Warms the cold within.

Ulysses (Vintage International) by James Joyce
Flower of mountain/ 'Midst high Howth rhododendron/ The sun shines for you.

A Lost Lady (Willa Cather Scholarly Edition) by Willa Cather
A toast--Happy Days! / The wild roses of summer / Their bloom, quick to fade.

O Pioneers! (Penguin Classics) by Willa Cather
Days on the Divide / Spring, summer, autumn, winter, . . . / O Alexandra!

My Ántonia (Broadview Literary Texts) by Willa Cather
Jim's Antonia. / Copper-red prairie: Toooh-neeey, / My Antonia.

The Leopard: A Novel by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa
Don Fabrizio / abed with Princess Stella / Gesummaria!

Cool. Might have known someone would already be doing that routinely.

And in Limericks. I recently came across this one by Adpaton written last year for Miracle at Speedy Motors

Mma Ramotswe, amateur sleuth,
Has reached her ninth volume, s'truth;
The writing is quaint,
Of sleeze there's no taint,
And no trace of language uncouth.

The two proper lady gumshoes
Are having a fit of the blues
As letters unkind
From a poisonous mind
Have arrived without any clues.

Mma Makutsi has bought a new bed -
The heart-shape quite went to her head -
A client is trying
They suspect she is lying,
And cash problems are bleeding them red.

A large fan-base of readers adoring
Love the stories and keep on imploring
For more of the same
And no-one's to blame
If some of us find them just boring

I don't quite have that level of skill.

Carpe Diem
Vampires are invited
Granny will sip her cup of tea
Religion be dammed

#5> Wilf, I particularly like the "Gesummaria" at the end of The Leopard's haiku.

#8> Thanks Paola, just taking my cue from the source.

Cannot resist a literary challenge:

my current read is Wild Dogs by Helen Humphreys.

Dogs and natures discarded
Free are we or wild
Tumult descends: no answers

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Boy in love with Aunt
Boys first name starts with an A
It happens again

:-)

PS I really did love this book more much more than the Haiku conveys.

me me me me me
me me me me me me me
me me me me me

Atlas Shrugged

Nice one, tomcatMurr. My Atlas Shrugged:

Trains, money, metals;
We owe nothing to others.
Where are the servants?

Message edited by its author, Jun 3, 2009, 7:31am.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Outcast yearns for flight
Higher plane of existence
Desires to teach

Oh, keep them coming. These are great fun.

Thanks Duke. Like yours too, and the comic strip. I detest Ayn Rand. Does it show?

Message edited by its author, Jun 3, 2009, 10:50am.

It does. As for me, I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I am very glad I didn't fall for the Rand stuff when I encountered Shrugged as an adolescent.

Message edited by its author, Jun 3, 2009, 12:29pm.

City of Bones

Jace, Clary, Simon
Magnus, Alec, Izzy, Max
These are the good guys

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

Irish lass heads west
A new life and love await
Will she stay or go?

Message edited by its author, Jun 3, 2009, 1:06pm.

Adobe was doing this with his 50 Book Challenge last year. He seems to have left us, though. There are some good ones there.

Frida's Bed by Slavenka Drakulic

Pain, illness, despair
Betrayed by body and love
Art provides escape

These work quite well at getting us interested in a book, don't they?

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke

The world of Faerie
Illusion, dark heart, and fey
Trust nothing - away!

A Limerick about a Haiku

Lines one, two and five in trimeter,
With lines three and four in dimeter,
Iambic and anapestic
Sound quite antiseptic
But a Haiku--ahh--you can't beat 'er!

by Tiffin

Ok, dukedom...finish #3!

Message edited by its author, Jun 8, 2009, 12:40am.

Fantastic Tiffin! I much prefer the limerick to the haiku.

A limerick for The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr

There was a young tomcat named Murr
Who had a remarkable purr
When he purred late at night
His master would write
For the fiddle, and gaze at his fur.

(is enjambment allowed in a limerick, I wonder?)

Message edited by its author, Jun 8, 2009, 6:44am.

Thumbs UP, Tom. (I know thumbs are a puzzlement to cats, but it's meant as a compliment.)

tiffin@24,

Hmmm...

tiffin@24,

Hmmm...will need a bit of time...

Limericks, huh?

Loving Frank

There once was an architect named Wright
Who fancied a client first sight
They each left a spouse
The papers called him a louse
But in the end two wrongs just seemed right.

The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

Evil Zenia
Cunningly takes what she wants
Are we complicit?

#30 Nice! Made me go to the link. And the reviews. Then was put off a bit by the "girliest Girlybook" comment. Still, nice!

>31 It's the second time I've read it. This time around I'm roughly the age of the characters. It's a great discussion book. Not sure I understand the "girliest Girlybook" comment.

>31,32 See Merry10's review of The Robber Bride for the GG comment. Not that that's necessarily bad. Sometimes the manliest man will enjoy and discuss the girliest Girlbook.

>33 yes, I just found it and I do understand exactly what she is saying (I hadn't thought about it that way), but one should not be off by from reading it because of the use of that term :-) I have added my ravings to the rest of them.

Back to haiku.
Slaughterhouse Five:
Slush entombs his feet / Billy Pilgrim goes insane / It had to be done

#35

Interesting ending