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1LizzieD
I think that my one for January will be The Blue Flower. I reserve the right to change my mind, but I think right now that BF is the one!
3LizzieD
Jill, it's from the '96 long list by Penelope Fitzgerald whom I haven't read either. 25 pages in, I'm liking it.
Somebody else, Laura maybe?, listed her Orange readings in 2010, and that inspired me to do the same. I see that close to 9% of what I read came from Orange lists. I haven't read a bad one yet although I naturally love some more than others. So ----- in 2010 I read the following Oranges:
Wolf Hall
The Clothes on Their Backs
Intuition
Gilead
Small Island (for Orange July)
The Septembers of Shiraz
The Lacuna
If I ordered them by love and significance for me, *Lacuna* and *Gilead* would head the list.
Somebody else, Laura maybe?, listed her Orange readings in 2010, and that inspired me to do the same. I see that close to 9% of what I read came from Orange lists. I haven't read a bad one yet although I naturally love some more than others. So ----- in 2010 I read the following Oranges:
Wolf Hall
The Clothes on Their Backs
Intuition
Gilead
Small Island (for Orange July)
The Septembers of Shiraz
The Lacuna
If I ordered them by love and significance for me, *Lacuna* and *Gilead* would head the list.
4lauralkeet
Might've been me, I dunno. I have a list for just about everything :)
7lauralkeet
* salivating *
8LizzieD
Reporting in on The Blue Flower at a little beyond the half mark. I'm still waiting for "like" to turn into "love," but I don't think that's going to happen. It's a bit amorphous somehow - Fritz has fallen in love at first sight with a 12 year-old girl. His family and friends who know, don't understand since Sophia is neither intelligent nor beautiful. Most chapters end with a philosophical comment or question that I just don't get. (Like Lord Peter Wimsey, I have always found the philosophy book closed to me.) "The Blue Flower" is the beginning of a story that Fritz has told (and the reader has read) twice so far. A young man has met a stranger who has told him about a blue flower. The blue flower has gripped his imagination although he can't say why. So --- The doctor who is treating Sophia is referred to this way at the end of chapter 36: "He had never had the chance to hear the opening of The Blue Flower, but if he had done so he could have said immediately what he thought it meant." What am I to make of that? Death? Why?
9kirsty
I tried really hard to "love" The Blue Flower too but I just didn't get it. I even read it while I was in Germany for added atmosphere and that didn't help :)
10LizzieD
Thanks, Kirsty. I find that encouraging. I was beginning to think that I was a lot dumber than I've been giving myself credit for being! I hope to finish today, and then read The Idea of Perfection, which will be my first Kate Grenville.
11lauralkeet
>10 LizzieD:: oooh, I loved loved loved The Idea of Perfection and hope you do, too!
12Soupdragon
I just looked at the LT reviews and Jill, Laura, Bonnie and I have each given The Idea of Perfection a glowing review and 5 star rating!
13mrstreme
Yep, loved The Idea of Perfection! Enjoy!
14LizzieD
I can't wait! I don't have to!!! JOY!
THE BLUE FLOWER by Penelope Fitzgerald
Nope. I can't review this. I have almost nothing to say about it, not that such a state ever stopped me before. Briefly, Fritz von Hardenberg is a student, a poet, a philosopher, and eventually by book's close, the deputy inspector of salt mines in his district. He falls immediately-upon-seeing-her in love with Sophie von Kühn who is twelve, not particularly bright, not particularly pretty except for her hair, but fun-loving and a little loud like her daddy. All of this happens in 18th century Germany, so there is some interest in what life was like then.
Adding poignancy to the story is a suitable woman who loves Fritz and his younger brother who also loves Sophie. I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out why another of Fritz's brothers is the Bernhard and Sophie's older sister is the Mandelsloh but Fritz is only Fritz and Sophie is only Sophie or Söphegen. I should have been thinking philosophically because that is what this book does. It never works for me.
Fritz calls Sophie "my heart of hearts," "my spiritual guide," and "my Philosophy." Sophie gets his name wrong. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't love much about it except the chapter title, "Algebra, Like Laudanum, Deadens Pain." Once again, I'm out of sync because that was never my experience with algebra and I've been spared the laudanum.
THE BLUE FLOWER by Penelope Fitzgerald
Nope. I can't review this. I have almost nothing to say about it, not that such a state ever stopped me before. Briefly, Fritz von Hardenberg is a student, a poet, a philosopher, and eventually by book's close, the deputy inspector of salt mines in his district. He falls immediately-upon-seeing-her in love with Sophie von Kühn who is twelve, not particularly bright, not particularly pretty except for her hair, but fun-loving and a little loud like her daddy. All of this happens in 18th century Germany, so there is some interest in what life was like then.
Adding poignancy to the story is a suitable woman who loves Fritz and his younger brother who also loves Sophie. I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out why another of Fritz's brothers is the Bernhard and Sophie's older sister is the Mandelsloh but Fritz is only Fritz and Sophie is only Sophie or Söphegen. I should have been thinking philosophically because that is what this book does. It never works for me.
Fritz calls Sophie "my heart of hearts," "my spiritual guide," and "my Philosophy." Sophie gets his name wrong. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't love much about it except the chapter title, "Algebra, Like Laudanum, Deadens Pain." Once again, I'm out of sync because that was never my experience with algebra and I've been spared the laudanum.
15lauralkeet
>14 LizzieD:: Hmmm, I think I can pass on that one! Thanks for sparing me, Peggy.
18brenzi
It's always good to find a book I don't feel the need to add to my teetering tower. Thanks for that Peggy.
19LizzieD
This is sort of a duplicate of a post on my 75 thread, but I wonder whether anybody else objects to the italics in The Idea of Perfection? I am loving the book and loving Grenville's writing, but those italics are driving me a little nutty. Is the idea to make us see how nearly alike the musings of Harley about not appearing wound and Felicity of not encouraging lines or Mr. Chang are?
I may go read some of those 5-star reviews.....
I may go read some of those 5-star reviews.....
22Soupdragon
Oh dear! I don't remember the italics so they can't have bothered me but I imagine that once you do notice they become increasingly annoying!
23lauralkeet
I sort of remember them and in my mind they were associated more with Felicity than Harley, but they didn't bother me ... I agree with Dee though: once you notice something and it takes hold it's hard not to get annoyed!
24LizzieD
It's a very little thing, and I confess to being a curmudgeon, but I wish she hadn't done it. Otherwise, the book is wonderful and I'm about half through it.
25LizzieD
I'm lazy, so here's what I had to say about The Idea of Perfection on my 75 thread. I'm sure that this is the last Orange that I'll eat in January although I'll probably start another before the month is out.
The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville
I loved it, but I didn't LOVE it as I might have because of a couple of stylistic choices which ended up driving me batty. I had never read K. Grenville before, and I'm a trifle vexed with her because she might so easily have decided not to be gimmicky.
The first decision, not to use quotation marks, was not a big deterrent to enjoyment. Most of the time conversation was transparent. I can recall only two or three times of having to go back and reread in order to find the sense.
My other problem, though, is more fundamental. She uses italics in every character's internal monologues, and a good part of the book is internal monologue. Now I use italics here often, but I'm not
writing a sustained narrative, and most of the time I'm not trying to say something insightful about the human situation. Grenville's italics had two bad effects on me. First, the characters tend to sound exactly alike, and they aren't. For awhile I thought that this might be the point. Harley and Felicity are so different in their whole approach to life that their self-obsessions are not readily apparent as the same thing. Douglas sounds like them too, even as he is also aware of other people only as they react to him. Second, the italics tend to trivialize deeper awareness that Harley, at least, gains because we are accustomed to see them used for incidentals. I don't think I'm being hard to please, but you decide by looking at a heavily italicized segment from Harley's mind. (I've ignored the paragraphing.)
"It was the dogs themselves. It was the way they adored you. --- Husbands adored you too, at least at first. Being adored was something she had come to mistrust. She felt adoration to be a small and lovely-looking bomb that could blow up in your face at any time. --- But it could not be Harley Savage who was being adored, because Harley Savage was not adorable."
When she arrives at something of an epiphany, the same italics occur. I leave it to you, but the woman can write, and the book was character-driven and deeply interesting. So I gave it four stars and will leave this caveat here for friends.
The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville
I loved it, but I didn't LOVE it as I might have because of a couple of stylistic choices which ended up driving me batty. I had never read K. Grenville before, and I'm a trifle vexed with her because she might so easily have decided not to be gimmicky.
The first decision, not to use quotation marks, was not a big deterrent to enjoyment. Most of the time conversation was transparent. I can recall only two or three times of having to go back and reread in order to find the sense.
My other problem, though, is more fundamental. She uses italics in every character's internal monologues, and a good part of the book is internal monologue. Now I use italics here often, but I'm not
writing a sustained narrative, and most of the time I'm not trying to say something insightful about the human situation. Grenville's italics had two bad effects on me. First, the characters tend to sound exactly alike, and they aren't. For awhile I thought that this might be the point. Harley and Felicity are so different in their whole approach to life that their self-obsessions are not readily apparent as the same thing. Douglas sounds like them too, even as he is also aware of other people only as they react to him. Second, the italics tend to trivialize deeper awareness that Harley, at least, gains because we are accustomed to see them used for incidentals. I don't think I'm being hard to please, but you decide by looking at a heavily italicized segment from Harley's mind. (I've ignored the paragraphing.)
"It was the dogs themselves. It was the way they adored you. --- Husbands adored you too, at least at first. Being adored was something she had come to mistrust. She felt adoration to be a small and lovely-looking bomb that could blow up in your face at any time. --- But it could not be Harley Savage who was being adored, because Harley Savage was not adorable."
When she arrives at something of an epiphany, the same italics occur. I leave it to you, but the woman can write, and the book was character-driven and deeply interesting. So I gave it four stars and will leave this caveat here for friends.
26LizzieD
I believe that it was this morning that I promised not to start another book. Now I'm trying to decide whether to wait for Molly Fox's Birthday to arrive or to go ahead and dive into either On Beauty or Fingersmith. By tomorrow I may have settled on something entirely different. (Am I to understand that people actually plan what they will read for a year?)
27raidergirl3
Fingersmith!!
29wookiebender
Third for Fingersmith!
It may seem like a big read, but it flies by so fast.
It may seem like a big read, but it flies by so fast.
30LizzieD
I'm persuaded, and the heft of the volume was really what was holding me back. I am already reading a few chunksters right now. So --- when the mood hits today or tomorrow, I'll start Fingersmith. Thanks!
31cushlareads
Peggy I'm just the same - can't plan or it takes the fun away, and I go off on reading tangents without always knowing why. I've learnt to plan long books or they don't happen, but I am forever picking up something else. (Fingersmith is sitting right here but I am not opening it now, NO NO NO! I have too many started.)
32LizzieD
Well, I have resisted starting it too. I really need to finish at least one more thing on my bloated "currently reading" list, but it's calling me. Meanwhile, I'm thrilled beyond saying that I won Bel Canto on the facebook Orange page!!!!!
34gennyt
I haven't read Fingersmith yet either - too late now for Orange January but I have a copy on its way via Bookmooch so I may save it for July, or possibly give in and read it sooner...
35LizzieD
January was such a treat! I'll be reading Orange all year, but since I haven't finished anything - not yet.
36LizzieD
I haven't done so well with Orange this year although the ones I've read have been wonderful with one exception. So in order of preference, here's what I've read since January:
The Memory of Love
The Seas and The Invisible Bridge - couldn't be more different, but they tie for 2nd place
Jamrach's Menagerie - too graphic and too predictable
My first for July is A Visit from the Goon Squad. I am a great J. Egan fan on the strength of The Keep. Then I''m not sure whether to try to take another off Mt. Bookpile or fork over the $ to put The Tiger's Wife on the Kindle. It somehow doesn't appeal enough to spend the extra now. Of COURSE, if I win it tonight (and everybody who hasn't visited Orange January/July at facebook should rush right over, look around, and enter on Jill's blog for the drawing!), I'll certainly read it!
The Memory of Love
The Seas and The Invisible Bridge - couldn't be more different, but they tie for 2nd place
Jamrach's Menagerie - too graphic and too predictable
My first for July is A Visit from the Goon Squad. I am a great J. Egan fan on the strength of The Keep. Then I''m not sure whether to try to take another off Mt. Bookpile or fork over the $ to put The Tiger's Wife on the Kindle. It somehow doesn't appeal enough to spend the extra now. Of COURSE, if I win it tonight (and everybody who hasn't visited Orange January/July at facebook should rush right over, look around, and enter on Jill's blog for the drawing!), I'll certainly read it!
