Tad's Reading with Occasional Ceramics

An abbreviated summary of my threads from previous years

2012 Final Four
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The Polish Boxer by Eduardo Halfon
Volkswagon Blues by Jacques Poulin
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

2011 Final Four
From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus
The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
The Wedding of Zein and other stories by Tayeb Salih
Pied Piper by Nevil Shute

2010 Final Four
Children of the New World by Assia Djebar
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
White Masks by Elias Khoury
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

2009 Final Four
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West

2008 Final Four
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Random Harvest by James Hilton
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
Prospero's Cell by Lawrence Durrell

Unhitched: Love, Marriage, and Family Values from West Hollywood to Western China by Judith Stacey



Bottom Line: Slightly flawed, imo, but worth reading for the questions raised and the case studies recounted.

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The fundamental premise of Stacey's book is that monogamous, heterosexual marriage is:

a) Not the only viable form of pair-bonding,
b) Not the overwhelmingly dominate form in human history,
c) Not necessarily the "best" form

In pursuit of this thesis, she presents data and opinion based upon her researches, looking at permutations of gay marriages and unions (somewhat less so at lesbian relationships), non-exclusive relationships, polygamous/polyamorous relationships, and some unique matriarchal, non-marital practices in a part of China. If there is a central tenet of her arguments, it is that love and marriage don't always go together like a horse and carriage.

Since I'm going to list a few problems I had with this book, let me start by saying that it is a book well worth reading. If your religious beliefs do not permit flexibility about human relationships, it is still full of fascinating sociological study. If that is not true, then there is the added benefit of the thought-provoking questions it raises.

The ideas and questions she raises are quite fascinating and, in my view, quite relevant in Western society of today. Her research is intriguing to read about. I do, however, think that her conclusions are somewhat suspect. Though she refrains from stating a recipe for successful relationships, I felt she implied that if we just "take a little of A from here, and a drop of B from there, mix in some C and stir with a lot of tolerance" that all would be well. It's a facile approach that assumes that transplanted behaviors and beliefs would function identically in a different context. Perhaps I mis-read between the lines; other readers can form their own judgments.

There are also some overt statements that caused me to raise an eyebrow. For example: "Musuo children have no fathers"—hogwash. (Traditional Musuo relationships are matrilineal, matrilocal and matriarchal; biological fatherhood was not important.) Of course they do. The social role of father is simply played by maternal uncles rather than biological fathers. Biology is not essential, as adoption shows.

In a way, these deficiencies (as I perceive them) don't really hurt because they become little speed bumps that joggle you out of the flow and cause you to challenge what you are reading.

It's a well-written book that avoids academic fustiness. It's full of topical questions ranging from LGBT issues, to child rearing, to the rash of high-profile cheating scandals that seems to occur disproportionately on the conservative side of our country's leadership.

Happy New Year, Tad. I'm glad you started a new thread. Have you thought about Club Read?

Unhitched sounds fascinating, despite some minor author (mis)interpretation. In light of the new laws in Washington State (where I live) and Maine (where I'm from and am visiting right now) allowing same sex marriage, it seems as though we are at the turning point where law is finally catching up to reality. I just finished reading Cleopatra, and it was interesting to read Schiff's comparison of how women were viewed in Egypt and Rome during the same time period. What a cultural clash that was. It was especially interesting to see how highly intelligent, articulate men would react to Cleopatra's independence and strength of will, even generations later. From Cicero to Plutarch to Dio, they all struggled to explain the phenomena of Cleopatra without resorting to cliches that must have sounded lame even to them.

Glad you're back for another year!
2,3: Well, law is catching up to reality within limits, with less attachment to Platonic forms of male and female, and less pragmatic reason for biological reproductive units. We’re still pretty set on the nuclear family.

Here you are! Great!! Good to see you and to read about your first book.

>3 labfs39:: Hi, Lisa. The book about Cleopatra sounds interesting. I know little about her beyond the Hollywood & Shakespeare versions.

>4 qebo:: Hi Katherine. In some sense, that is what Stacey is addressing: the "pretty set on the nuclear family" aspect of things.

Overtly, she is simply presenting alternatives. She devotes a rather large section to the practices and trends among the gay community where...obviously...biology doesn't permit the birth family and the parenting family to be synonymous.

Covertly, I had a sneaking suspicion that she was passing value judgments on those who feel that way; there didn't seem to be a lot of room for well-meaning people who have religious beliefs. However, I may be reading things into her words that weren't there.

One of the minor threads of the book that I found most interesting—and most frustrating since she never really picked it up and ran with it—was the whole concept of fidelity and how that concept differs between various sociological groups. She presented the notion that there is only one definition of fidelity in the mainstream version of our social mores and then noted (marital) cheating is rampant in our society, leading to speculation on cause and effect. But then she kind of dropped this line of inquiry, to my frustration.

>5 LizzieD:: Hey, Peggy.

Hi Tad! I like your final four summary from previous years. Somehow, I have trouble narrowing down my favorites to manageable lists like that. Oh well, not a bad problem to have!

Stacey's book sounds interesting too. I often find it interesting that current trends that cause debate aren't that uncommon when we consider historical perspectives.

Happy New Year!

On the whole topic of law catching up with reality: it strikes me that we are entering a period somewhat analogous to the late 50s/early 60s and the Civil Rights movement. I look at the back and forth of legalization of gay marriage followed by something like Proposition 8. Or the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington (and semi-legalized many other places) followed by the immediate federal government "warnings".

While these two things are not similar in their social characteristics, they both have that element of law vs. reality. Makes me wonder if we're starting another convulsive movement to reconcile the two? We seem to go through them periodically.

>7 porch_reader:: Hi Amy. It's sometimes hard to pick four...but I just make myself do A/B comparisons until I get there. :-)

I highly recommend the Schiff biography of Cleopatra. Although there is very little source material on Cleopatra's life, Schiff does a wonderful job of sorting through what there is, presenting multiple perspectives, and taking the logical approach to probabilities. A superbly researched and documented biography, the book also compares Eastern sensuality, wealth, and grandeur versus Roman prudish stances (though not practice) and uncouth cities through the eyes of both Romans and Ptolemies. I got bogged down once, but overall it was a page turner.

Welcome back! Looks like your first book was an interesting one. I'll keep an eye out for it.

That does sound like an interesting book. As a well-meaning (I hope) person of religious belief, I approve of books which remind/inform us that human life and experience are far more complex than our stereotypical norms allow. When people go on about returning to biblical values in this respect I like to ask which bits, since the bible contains among other things plenty of polygamy on the one hand and advice against marriage at all on the other hand.

This reminds me I have a book on the history of marriage which has been sitting unread on my shelves for far too long...

Hi Tad. I'm glad you decided to start a thread in the 75ers for 2013. I thought your comments about us entering a period like the late 50s/early 60s and the Civil Rights movement were interesting. It does seem like we made a big lurch forward in the last election as far as same-sex marriage and legalizing marijuana. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out and how the Supreme Court rules on the 2 same sex marriage cases it has before it.

12: When people go on about returning to biblical values in this respect I like to ask which bits, since the bible contains among other things plenty of polygamy on the one hand and advice against marriage at all on the other hand.

Seems reason to link to the Chick-fil-A Biblical Family of the Day series. Not religion-bashing; the author is an Evangelical Christian.

Hi Tad, I'm going to try to make a better effort of keeping track of your thread this year as you always have such insightful reviews and read such interesting books. Your first book of 2013 is a perfect example and just landed on my WL. I would second Lisa's recommendation of the Schiff bio of Cleopatra. I hadn't read any other books about Cleopatra so wasn't bothered by the seeming lack of primary sources. I thought she did a reasonable job considering there just isn't much available to cite. And I also found it to be quite a page turner.

I also am impressed by your ability to get your favorites down to four. In the Shadow of the Banyan, Three Day Road, The Return of the Soldier and All Quiet on the Western Front all made my final Top Reads but I could barely whittle my lists down to ten, let alone four.

Hi Tad, great to see you over here in 2013. I've now seen Pied piper on two 'best of' lists in the last couple of days. I was deciding whether to take it on holiday with me, I think I will now!

>15 brenzi:: Hi Bonnie. With two such recommendations, it's on my birthday wish list.

>16 avatiakh:: Hi Kerry. I hope you like it. Drop back when you're done and let me know.

The Woodcutter by Kate Danley



Bottom Line: A fun walk but still a "first book" feel to it

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The Woodcutter is a book that reminded me of quite a few other books:

It's a fairy tale so, of course, one cannot help but think of the Grimm Brothers. But the stories were changed just enough that I thought of McKinley, perhaps Rose Daughter or Spindle's End.

And, since it uses a dozen or so other fairy tales as source material, it reminds me of some of the old standbys that use that device such as Myers' Silverlock.

The mood in much of it has that slightly dreamy air of McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. The characters, especially the evil ones such at The Gentleman, occupy archetypal rather than individual roles, evoking Tepper's True Game, especially the first trilogy.

And the protagonist wouldn't have been out of place in a de Lint novel.

...and so on.

In a way, that sums up my feeling about this book. It was interesting and well-written, and the fundamental premise was original enough, and I found it engrossing and fun and I liked reading it…but it didn't quite seem to have a voice of its own. You read a McKillip or a de Lint or, yes, a Tolkien or a Kay…any of the time-tested who choose to walk through portions of Faërie…and you know whose book you're holding. Danley doesn't quite have that, yet.

It's not that she doesn't have it within her. There were moments, particularly when the main character is recollecting his wife, where I thought, "There's Danley's voice!" I'd like to see more of that. I think it can happen. It's why I'll buy her next book.

Glad to see the Remarque on your best of the best list. Four is a good number, I was a bit ruthless with only two.

I want to read Unhitched and I think I am going to recommend that my library buy it..... this will be my sneaky way around my self-imposed book-buying ban, but I do think it will be a book that local folks will find interesting.

Tad, your review of Unhitched brought up memories of reading Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility by Germaine Greer in the mid-80s, also a fascinating book on much the same topic.

I can't decide whether to look for The Woodcutter or not. Being familiar with every one of your references (which I thought was neat!), and with there being so many books out there waiting for me--maybe I should just wait for her second book? Ah, but if it shows up in front of me, I know I'll pick it up.

I'm also happy to see All Quiet on the Western Front in your top-four, Tad.

Nice to see you back, Tad. Happy New Year!

In terms of the nuclear family, I think we are seeing the downside of that structure, especially with so many single-parent households. Did you see the excerpt from Jared Diamond's book in the latest (and I think last print) edition of Newsweek? He describes how children are raised in hunter-gatherer societies, and while he agrees that some 'neglect' is too dangerous for our society to put up with, he is quite cogent about the value of extended adult models and groups of children of varying ages.

Jim and I are going to hear Diamond speak at the New School on Monday. Either he or I will post about it, I'm sure.

So glad you had good reads to start off the year. Nice reviews. I like the way you write :) Blessings!

>20 ronincats: Roni, sorry if this subverts you, but Amazon has The Woodcutter as one if its daily deals today - $1.99.

That sounds really interesting Judy - one thing I've often thought is that the public school rigidity of age grouping for EVERYTHING (unless you fall behind or jump ahead) is awful - also the almost complete segregation of the age groups in totally separate schools. No one learns faster than someone who has to teach to a younger kid.

Yes, that's true, and I've had some real life experience with that. Also, Diamond says it prepares young adults for parenthood, as they are always around children of all ages and gradually participate in their care. I do think people who were in the older end of a large family are often more comfortable taking care of their own children than people who were onlys.

We had an interesting evening. There were some 20-25 people at a get together and the subject of 50 Shades of Grey came up. Two things that immediately struck me:

1. The percentage of people that had read it (9 that admitted it)
2. The percentage of that percentage that were women (8 of 9) despite there being about an equal split of male/female people who read there

I haven't read it. From comments I've heard, I gather that there is a consensus that it's a rather badly-written book. In fact, most of those 8 said it was to one extent or another, but...Surprising Thing #3...they said they kinda had fun reading it anyway. I can understand that concept; I can read some fairly drekky science fiction and have fun doing it. I'm not sure that drekky erotica is my bag, however—I'm told that one of the more common labels applied to this book is "mommy porn", a term that would make a great conversation in and of itself—so I'm not adding this to the TBR list just yet.

Where the evening got really interesting was a rather amicable argument when one of the women said that she really objected to the book because it set back women through its portrayal of whoever the main character is as submissive to a man.

edited to remove some commentary

Judy, is that from The World Until Yesterday? I haven't read that. The only Diamond I've read so far is Guns, Germs and Steel. I'd like to read more of his stuff at some point.

'Mommy porn' - somehow that's funny! I assume it basically means that it is 'clean' or 'healthy'. I will never read Fifty Shades of Grey........ I think of it as one of those books that many people who generally don't read much can wade through. Hope that doesn't sound snotty.

>29 sibylline:: I'm actually not certain what the term means. I asked Julie for her take and she thought it meant "porn socially acceptable for a woman to admit reading." She hasn't read it either but thinks that the book is generally classified sort of as a romance novel, which doesn't have the stigma of "porn" regardless of content. Makes me think of the Laurel Hamilton novels which are hugely mainstream—they started as somewhat racy, went to really racy, and are now pretty much just unending sex of a reasonably graphic nature, but are still right up there on the NY Times Bestseller List and shelved on the main tables in book stores.

Wonder if we're seeing the genesis of a new term?

I think Julie nailed it. That was what was in my head, more or less......

Tad, yes, that's the new Diamond book. Jim is a big devote of Diamond's books. The one before this was 'Collapse', about the decisions certain cultures made that headed them toward disaster.

I think I've heard him speak before, but maybe not in person. I'll report back after Monday's talk.

I came to wish you a Happy New Year, Tad, and got all interested in people's comments about Cleopatra, which sits half read on the bedside table...I ground to a halt with it last summer and never picked it up again. And then Fifty Shades of Grey, which I will never read either, Lucy. Mommy porn: image of Beaver Cleaver's mother in her pearls, panty-hosed feet tucked up neatly in a wing chair, her face going pink now and then, putting Beaver to bed early so she and Walt can have some "time" together.

Oh, and a very Happy New Year, Tad! Happy reading.

LOL, Tui!! That image has certainly made my day!

Happy New Year, Tad!

Fabulous description, Tui!

Well said, Tui, hehe! I'll admit to having read Fifty Shades of Grey, the trilogy in fact. Very poorly written, very easy to race through, and entertaining escape fiction, at least for me. I remember I was also avoiding report cards at the time, and the trilogy helped accomplish that! I'm single, professionally well employed, and happy about both; but I have to admit that occasionally the idea of being rescued by a hot, sexy billionaire in his helicopter appeals, LOL. I think Julie's def of "mommy porn" is spot-on.

Just by way of talking...something is cutting more into my normal reading time than is usual.

That something is reading Infinite Jest, the (alleged) masterpiece of fiction for the last 50 years. My jury is definitely out deliberating on that one.

At this point, still sub-223 pages (that number is significant) of the 1079 that are to be read, I can only say that...should it get no better...it is a mildly-amusing and largely-unintelligible ramble through an author's need to be opaque.

I'm assured on Good Authority—by several good authorities in fact—that this will all transform into Enlightenment and Ultimate Payoff at some point. That point is carefully not identified: perhaps at the mythical page 223, or perhaps not until the final 1079. We shall see. I will say that there better be a significant Show Me The Money moment to validate this parking ticket.

In the meantime, it sucks up huge quantities of time since it is terribly slow going for me. War and Peace, to which I've heard it compared, flew by in long stretches of engrossment (is that a word?)...loved it! (See Final Four lists above)

Ulysses—to which it is also compared at times, and which I didn't fully understand due to not recognizing all the allusions—nonetheless zipped along merrily in comparison. Didn't love it but could recognize it, if that makes any sense?

This however, with its multi-page sentences, and copious footnotes (some of them also multi-page) and sheer deliberate obfuscation crawls along at 1/10th the normal rate. Mildly amusing...am not hurling across the room in sheer and utter frustration. Am listening to Good Authority (so far, at least).

Thus, though 2013 got off to a good start, the pace of Books Completed now slams to a screechingly low gear.

I'm going to persevere at least until page 223. Then we shall see...

multi-page sentences... that killed off Faulkner for me. Bon courage.

37: Much that is deemed literature is completely lost on me, and at 1000+ pages I'm not touching this one. I detest deliberate obfuscation. Far more attracted to books that make an effort to clarify complexity. Reviews cover the extremes.

one of my book club reads last year was The Broom of the System, which I would describe as alternately amusing and annoying. I definitely didn't see what the fuss was about, and I've resisted Infinite Jest for the same reason. Does it help to remember that Hamlet called the long-dead clown (in the graveyard scene) a man of 'infinite jest'? Maybe not.

>40 ffortsa:: Actually, there are a lot of things that may or may not be Hamlet references, Judy. Hard for me to tell.

Ah, I just remembered the clown's name: Yorick.

I'm reading Foster's book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, and he talks a lot about references like that, how they can deepen your pleasure and understanding of what you read. However, if the reading is a slog, no quantity of Shakespearian references will do any good, at least IMO.

By the way, I've also wondered about Shakespeare's Henry V, given that the main character was named Hal and there seem to be a lot of Shakespeare references. The heroic stature would fit.

But, then, I also wondered about 2001: A Space Odyssey because of H.A.L., the psycho computer who sees everything because that ain't necessarily far off the main character either.

Have you gotten to Katherine Gompert yet? She was the 'turning point' for me.

#37 LOL! I love your post on Infinite Jest, Tad. I'm still giggling at your bold-ness. I too hate deliberate obfuscation, qebo. Doesn't sound like the book for me, but good luck!

>45 sibylline:: I have. It was riveting. It was, unfortunately, followed by the meeting of Marathe and Steeply, which was absurdly stupid.

In fact, if anyone wanted to read a great short story, I would unreservedly recommend they find a copy of Infinite Jest and read from page 68 to the first break on page 78 and then stop. It's an entirely self-contained tale that absolutely conveys despair, loneliness and futility.

I thought of that story as.... a deliberate lifting of the curtain of obfuscation..... I couldn't stand Steeply and Marathe either in the beginning..... but that changed eventually too, to acceptance.... but you may not succumb.

I read another 10 pages at lunch. Part of me wonders if I'm well-read enough to read this book. There is the sensation of hundreds of allusions passing overhead.

Part of me wonders whether I'll finish it and feel that the entire exercise was a colossal testament to one author's desire to be "tricky" and prove that could write something this complicated, with this many references to babies, dependence, bodily wastes, the color blue, Hamlet, etc...all of which seemingly unrelated plot-wise or even thematically.

Part of me wonders whether the whole point of this book is to have the experience of reading this book...and that the content of the book is immaterial.

Part of me wonders if the 'Jest' portion is the laugh everyone who has read it is having at yet another sucker trying to make sense of it whilst they shout later, keep going, eventually, someday. 'Infinite' because there is another born every minute.

I feel stupid.

Or that the author is having a wonderful laugh that it ever got published, and now that people sit at home and force themselves through it, looking for answers that aren't there.

I am adding The Woodcutter to the BlackHole. I enjoy fairy tale retellings, so it looks right up my alley.

Glad to see you here, Tad!

I think the title of it could as easily be Infinite Sorrow. It's deadly serious underneath several layers of humor. I ended up loving - really loving - the kids at the tennis academy and also many of the people at the halfway house for their courage and determination to survive, to make it, even though life is so.... incomprehensibly weird.

You are more than well-read enough, Tad. It is one of those books meant to be read more than once.

I second Sib's comment. You are definitely well.read.enough.and not stupid. Some books seem to need a.crib sheet!

Hi Tad. Just stopping by to say hello from Md. I think it's interesting that your best picks for 2012 were all foreign books (am I right?). Good luck with Infinite Jest - it is not one I would contemplate reading. If you get down for your daughters' competitions drop in again.

R.

>50 lunacat:: Hi Jenny. Hehe...we're discussing that very topic over on my Infinite Jest thread.

>51 alcottacre:: Hi Stasia. I hope you like it.

>52 sibylline: & 53: *doubting expression*

>54 CanadaPile:: Hi Ruth. Actually, I believe that Vaddey Rattner is an American citizen now, although born in Cambodia. So that probably makes that one American fiction. But yes...German, Guatemalan and Canadian for the other three. Just the luck of the draw since I read a fair amount of literature in translation, although nowhere near what some other people in this forum do,

#47 In fact, if anyone wanted to read a great short story, I would unreservedly recommend they find a copy of Infinite Jest and read from page 68 to the first break on page 78 and then stop. It's an entirely self-contained tale that absolutely conveys despair, loneliness and futility.

Well that is something I can do! I'm definitely not ready to try the whole book yet.

#53 Some books seem to need a.crib sheet!

Actually, I've seen several books available on Amazon that are guides on how to read and understand Infinite Jest. If I ever read it, I have a feeling I'll be looking for them as well.

There are some great resources on-line too Pat - I sometimes had a reference screen 'up' - I do it reading Pynchon now too. I found myself studying maps of Boston to figure out where everything was, for example. Nuts, but there you have it.

I'm eschewing the cheat-sheet approach other than a dictionary, trying to approach it as if there isn't a decade+ of scholarship around it. The only crib sheets I have so far are the ones I've made myself, such as one figuring out the relative order of the named years.

Btw, if people have read it and want to comment along, my reading thread for it is here. All I ask is No Spoilers, please.

I'm reading an omnibus of Hal Clement's Mesklin stories. I originally thought I'd review the book as a whole. However, Infinite Jest is taking a while and I figure I'd better get notes down on what I complete before I forget, so...



Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement



Bottom Line: Typical of a certain type of 1950s science fiction: geeky, all about the science. Fun to read if you enjoy that era but don't expect great drama or social aspects.

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This is quintessential 1950s geek science fiction: it's a story—but, really, the story exists to provide a vehicle for the science. Evidently, Clement liked challenges along the lines of "such-and-such couldn't exist." In this particular case, he tackled the premise that there was plenty of science fiction about low gravity planets and even more science fiction about high gravity planets…but everyone agreed you couldn't have a planet that was both, right?

Enter Mesklin, a world that is several times more massive than Earth but spins so quickly that its day is only 18 minutes long and its shape is a severely flattened ball. The result is hundreds of gravities at the poles and only three gravities at the equator. Its inhabitants can survive in the polar regions and feel like there is almost no gravity as they move toward Rim: high and low gravity in the same planet. Humans have lost an exploration probe on the planet and, since they cannot survive on most of it, they form an alliance with the natives to perform a salvage operation.

It's fun to watch Clement both explain and explore the physics, which he does in easily digested terminology. It's even more fun to watch him explore the psychological aspects of the inhabitants. Severe acrophobia and a pathological dread of having anything solid above them are just two of the characteristics that make total sense given the world but are difficult for humans to remember.

However, typical of this particular era, the book will seem a little flat by today's standards. There's little excitement or drama, and the movement toward social science fiction is still a decade away.

It's fun. It's certainly interesting from the perspective of seeing the development of science fiction. I think it's worth reading if you're a fan of the genre. However, I doubt it would make a Top Ten Entertaining SF Books of All Time list.

59: Delurking to say I'll be following along on your quest to get understanding and meaning out of Infinite Jest. I'm sure much if it was wasted on me but it was one of the highlights of last year's reading for me. It does get easier, Tad, so hang in there!

"the book will seem a little flat by today's standards"
Funny man! As I recall, even when I read it in the 60s, the story seemed a little "flat" even though the science was fascinating on its own.

>62 ronincats:: ;-) I'm about 75% of the way through Star Light right now and it's even flatter...approaching Abbott level (okay, bad science fiction joke!).

Interesting. Wikepedia tells me that Mission of Gravity is Clement's best known novel, but my library doesn't have it. I may try Noise or Still River, or even Intuit, which the library does own.

It's been interesting reading/rereading Hal - I'm realizing just how quirkily, even stubbornly original he was -- to be so thoroughly sciency, yet determined to see if he could set out these puzzles in plausible (sort of ) stories. As fiction, well, yes, they are dull, but it's the attempt really that is sort of courageous or something.

Took me a minute..... Flatland?

Well the way you're describing your experience reading Infinite Jest Tad, it looks like I made the right decision to skip that particular GR. Much like qebo, I'm not one for "deliberate obfuscation." I struggled through Pynchon this year for a Lit. course I took and swore I wouldn't knowingly touch another purposely opaque piece of fiction again. It's just too darn much work and I'm supposed to be retired;-)

>66 brenzi:: I will say this, Bonnie: I'm "some" way into the book, maybe 35%-40%. (It's hard to estimate progress because of the book's endnotes; they are a non-trivial amount of the pages and need to be read in sequence at the proper time.) Things are starting to make sense. I can't say that I've totally got a handle on what's going on—I don't—but a lot more of it is making sense in terms of chronology, sequencing and how unrelated story lines actually do relate.

I'm so glad that is happening, Tad.

Despite an intention to get away from Infinite Jest this weekend, I picked it up during one of the few calm periods yesterday. One of the things that strikes me about the book is how, if you read a little piece and then walk away for a bit, how you can conjure up echoes of other stuff you've read.

In this case, two absurd characters who occupy the role of Greek Chorus are arguing about the nature of choice and life experience. It called to mind reading some stuff back around 1981-2 to placate an ex-girlfriend who was quite taken with Werner Erhard and the whole e.s.t. thing. My impression was that he (WE) was "borrowing" freely from more original sources but, nonetheless, there is a direct link between what I"m reading now and some of that thinking.

As I said, it's striking what this book (IJ) can evoke if you sit with a section for a while.

I think of all the books I've heard about on LT, IJ is probably the most controversial, with a huge range of responses to it. It both intrigues me and puts me right off, so I dunno...maybe...one day...

I decided a short break from Infinite Jest was needed in order to refresh my memory of Hamlet since the former alludes heavily to the latter.



Hamlet by William Shakespeare

to depending upon how much I factor in enjoyment

This continues to remain my second-least-favorite of the seven Tragedies I've read so far. This preference isn't based upon the quality of the play qua play; it boils down to the fact that I simply don't enjoy Mr. Prince Hamlet, Jr.

Despite some arguments to the contrary, he still comes across to me as a bipolar obsessive with impulse control problems, a distinct lack of responsibility, a poor attitude toward girlfriends and who, if we read only what is written, appears to make monumental judgments about his mother on little or no evidence. In other words, I don't like him. Of course, I don't particularly like fellows such as Mr. Macbeth either, but it's a different lack of esteem: a dislike for the bad guy (which is a sneaking regard) rather than a disdain for the self-absorbed.

I find the characters of Polonius, Ophelia and Gertrude much more intriguing in this play and I do enjoy it for them. So, while I love the language of this play, and the supporting cast, and acknowledge the structure and plot, I still don't enjoy it as much as a romp through Birnham Wood or, better yet, Lear's Britain.

Hamlet does take some time to mature, and then, of course, he dies. I recall a performance by Derrek jacobl, who was alas too old for the part, which felt quite flamboyant to me for about four of the five acts, but which came together at the end to show us a man who had achieved mastery over himself.

What themes or threads does jfw use in IJ?

>71 TadAD:: Actually, I don't see that he ever really matures. But, anyway...

*** NOTE INFINITE JEST SPOILERS MAY OCCUR HERE ***

The answer to your question is "a lot plus probably a lot more I haven't gotten to or that went over my head."

There's:

• the title Infinite Jest
• essays by the main character (Hal) of IJ on heroes of inaction
• characters in IJ who seem rather Rosencrantz & Guildenstern-ish, and characters who might match other individuals in Hamlet (have to think about them some more) and name similarities between various characters
• someone pointed out to me that Hamlet opens with Bernardo saying, "Who's there?" and IJ's second paragraph is the main character saying, "I am here."
• there are drunken ghosts in Hamlet and drunken virtual-ghosts in IJ
• there is the fact that Hamlet's father dies early and his widow ends up with Hamlet's uncle, whilst Hal's father dies early and his widow ends up with Hal's maybe-uncle
• I'm not far enough along in IJ (probably will need to get to the end) to figure out whether Hamlet's madness and Hal's fits are related (NO SPOILERS FROM ANYONE ABOUT THIS IN RESPONSES, PLEASE)
• Etc., etc., etc.

ETA: It's not just Hamlet. I've found one reference that I'm positive is to Macbeth and am starting to wonder about some King Lear analogies.

Compare:

Infinite Jest: you can reduce it to an empty series of phonemes, just formants and fricatives, trochaically stressed, signifying zip.

to

Macbeth: a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

On the King Lear front, I'm still pondering on the relationships of Goneril, Regan and Cordelia to Lear vs. the relationships of Orin, Mario and Hal to James or—as I'm starting think it more germane in a gender-flipped way—to Avril. I see flashes of similarity but haven't quite nailed it down in my head.

The shoe finally dropped for me about Hamlet while I was teaching it to first years, having struggled with his indecision and dithering before. Part of the problem for me was that I had only seen him played by an older person but he is really a very young man away at university, fencing with his friends, hanging around in pubs, the typical uni student and a bit of a jock to boot. He has a girlfriend back home but she isn't much part of his day to day life. Suddenly he gets a message that his beloved father has died, so he hurries home only to find his mother married to and obviously in lust with his uncle after only a couple of months! He then finds out that said uncle murdered his father to get the kingdom and the queen, which pushes him right off the cliff.

So I'm looking at the 19/20 year olds in my seminar group and I thought 'how would you guys handle this'. I could see that they were struggling with Hamlet the person as well, so I asked them, well, what you do? How would you handle this? And one of the guys on the uni football squad said he'd probably hang around in graveyards talking to skulls too. hahahaha And Judy, they all agreed that he did finally grow up at the end, just before he died.

>74 tiffin:: I'll have to think about that, Tui. I've only seen Hamlet portrayed by Lawrence Olivier and Mel Gibson and, so, also have a mental picture of someone older than a teenager.

I'm curious as to why you think Hamlet grew up at the end. When I read the "Give me your pardon, sir" speech, what I hear is Hamlet blaming a mental condition rather than saying, "I screwed up!" He clearly states he was not to blame. Leaving aside all discussion of whether his madness was feigned or not, this still strikes me as a refusal to accept responsibility. It's the alcoholic saying, "The drink made me do it."

I admit that there was at one time an alcoholic in my life, so I may be sensitized to this. Further, I've just finished an incredibly moving portion of Infinite Jest where substance abusers talk about the need to stop blaming outside causes, thereby reinforcing this thought pattern in me.

So, how/why has he matured?

And I'm hating you and Judy right now because you are making me (note the disavowal of responsibility) feel I have to re-re-read Hamlet, keeping "he's an immature teenager" firmly in mind to see if my feelings about him as a character change!

Yeah, like I have time for this!



*smile*

Well, for starters, he was finally able to decide that the play's the thing whereby to catch the conscience of the king and do something, rather than moping about whingeing and wondering whether to be or not to be.

Tad, LOVE your comments on Hamlet. The play is on my grade 12 English curriculum, but your description of him as a bipolar obsessive with impulse control problems, a distinct lack of responsibility, a poor attitude toward girlfriends is the best I've read!

I don't think you have to reread the whole play. But look at the last act.

You may feel the line you quoted is a disavowel of responsibility, but I see it more as a diplomat's attempt to heal the rift between them, and maybe cool everyone's temper by showing that he no longer holds any anger toward Laertes.

Hamlet is a student of philosophy who suddenly must apply his theoretical understanding of life to the real world and his own life. A tall order.

That said, many people feel as you do.

Great great discussion, but I have to go reread at least the final act before I say a thing. I have, though, always assumed he 'has his insight moment' before he dies, if that is what growing up is......Funny - we're careful to film Romeo and Juliet with very young actors but not Hamlet. What is Ophelia? 16 or 17. That's a mad age too. Shakespeare knew his adolescents, methinks.

Baba Yaga Laid an Egg by Dubravka Ugrešić , translated from the Croatian by Ellen Elias-Bursać, Celia Hawkesworth, and Mark Thompson



Bottom Line: A decomposition/reconstitution of the Baba Yaga stories focused on the ageist, sexist and feminist angles. Good as you're reading it; even better as you come to the end and think back on what you've read.

---

This peculiar trio of tales—by turns tragedy and comedy—is about old age, and misogyny, and loneliness, and mothers and daughters, and young men. They are the Baba Yaga stories, not so much retold as decomposed into their elements and then reformed into new, modern stories.

It's easy to read the first two of the tales just on the surface, to see the first as a story of a daughter struggling with a mother who has Alzheimer's, to see the second as the story of three old women on a spa vacation, trying to coming to terms with their regrets and their pasts. If you've read any Slavic stories about Baba Yaga, you see the coincidences of the old women and spot the references to the familiar elements of those tales: the mortar and pestle, the single leg, the male adversaries, the giant breasts, love contained in an egg. And, yet, unless you are paying rather close attention, it doesn’t sink in fully until you read the third piece.

That one is couched as a primer on myth and analysis of the first two stories by one anagrammatic Dr. Aba Bagay, who practically bores you with detail about folklore. But, even before she finally (with an amused tone) tells you that she's an unreliable narrator whose analysis might be reading too much or too little, you've realized it for yourself. You've started to see connections that Dr. Bagay (quite deliberately, I believe) never mentions.

You realize that the characters, like Baba Yaga, aren't just themselves, they are also players in archetypical dramas about women as a whole…that Kukla, Beba and Pupa, despite being octogenarians, are also easily read as Maiden, Mother and Crone, standing simultaneously as figures of old women and of all women. You see that they, also like Baba Yaga, can suffer from the world and inflict suffering in return. From a different viewpoint, ordinary occurrences in their lives become more, summoning wealth or destruction from seeming thin air. They are, in a sense, witches.

The two stories become dramas about society's fear and revulsion toward old women. They become stories of both motherhood and mothers destroying their offspring, just as Baba Yaga eats children. They become stories of subservience to men, Baba Yaga unable to resist a handsome man who is forceful in telling her what to do. They also become stories of retribution against the same, Baba Yaga killing men who do not show her respect. In short, they become stories about sexism and ageism and feminism.

It's simply written as befits a folk tale. It's about old age but, like the best of those tales, it's never maudlin or sentimental about it, preferring to approach from Bette Davis' viewpoint, "Old age is no place for sissies."

It's about patriarchy—"let us not forget that all of these ugly, sexist notions…involving 'grandmas' were thought up by 'grandpas'. Who, naturally, reserved the more heroic parts for themselves."—but, also like the best of those tales, never lets us forget the other edge of that sword: Baba Yaga's hut was built from the skulls and bones of the men she slew so casually.

It's a book that becomes better as you finish it.

It won the Tiptree Award in 2010 and, while I can see that some might feel that this was a misjudgment, it makes sense to me.

Aiee Tad, I've put it on my list. What a great review!

Thanks, Lucy.

An interesting side thingie out of the book is it made me think about Pratchett and who is the Baba Yaga figure—the "chief old hag of hags" figure.

I've always tended think he played between Esmerelda Weatherwax and Mrs. Gogol. The former because she's got crotchety down to a science has got a bit of "I'm the boss" about her...right down to the Feegles calling her a "hag o' hags". The latter because of her house with duck feet (Baba Yaga's hut had chicken feet).

However, I learned from the Ugrešić that Baba Yaga is called Baba Oga in certain dialects, and Pratchett certainly makes it clear that Nanny Ogg has a giant chest (an attribute of Baba Yaga), putting her into the mix also.

Sly devil! Nanny Ogg as Baba Yaga wearing the Wicked Witch of the West's shoes. :-)

Very interesting review, Tad. Not sure I'll read it but I enjoyed learning about it.

Lovely analysis, and I loved the application to Pratchett, who always has 3 or 4 tricky allusions underlying the surface.

Are you aware of the PBS series on Shakespeare Uncovered going on right now? I watched the program on Macbeth last night with great interest, and I see the one on Hamlet is scheduled for 2/8/13 with David Tennant. Once they've been shown on air, you can watch them online. I'll have to watch the show on the comedies, which I missed.

http://video.pbs.org/program/shakespeare-uncovered/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_...

ETA Derek Jacobi will be hosting the program on Richard II. Yum!

The Baba Yaga book sounds fascinating. I'd definitely like to find a copy of this!

Fabulous review of Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, Tad! I've added it to my wish list.

I had checked Baba Yaga Laid an Egg out of the library, but didn't get to it before it was due back. I see I need to check it back out again. Have you read any others from the "Myths" series? Someone else referred me to the series a while back, Monica (JustJoey), I think.

I have had Baba Yaga Laid an Egg in the BlackHole for a while now, but my local library still does not have a copy. *sigh*

Glad to see you enjoyed it so much, Tad - even if it makes me a bit jealous :)

Baba Yaga Laid an Egg is now sitting atop my teetering tower Tad. Terrific review!

I had the pleasure of having an absolutely outstanding English teacher when I was a Jr. in high school. She took our class to Toronto to see Richard Burton in Hamlet. Senior year couldn't come close to topping that. Even at my advanced age, I can still recall much from that field trip, including my first time to eat Chinese food in a restaurant in the city. Now you've got me thinking about a reread myself, even though I'm not reading IJ haha.

Tad, you sure make me want to read Baba Yaga Laid an Egg. It sounds like the perfect book to read during Fantasy February. Thanks for that most excellent review.

Hi Pat, Roni, Faith, Darryl, Lisa, Stasia and Bonnie — thanks.

>85 ronincats:: No, Roni, I wasn't aware of it. I don't have a lot of time for TV (other than Downton Abbey and The Big Bang Theory *smile*) but I'll try to DVR it and watch it when I can.

>88 labfs39:: Lisa, the only other one in the series that I've read is Atwood's The Penelopiad, although I do have Smith's Girl Meets Boy sitting here at the house. I had looked at Byatt's Ragnarok but something kept me from pulling the trigger on it.

Whhhhfffffff!!!!

That's the sound of drawing breath to dive back into Infinite Jest after my week's break. If no signs of life in the next couple of weeks, please notify my wife.

It will distract me from the alternating cold - rain - cold - sleet - rain - cold cycle that is going in NJ weather right now.

It will also distract me from the changeover at the pottery studio. The new owner doesn't quite have her act fully together, so nothing is getting fired. That's not so good for us Need Fast Gratification types!

oooh the Baba Yaga book sounds really interesting!

Good luck Tad. I need to go check out your Infinite Jest thread (I almost wrote Infinite Dread). Your weather sounds bad--ice is the worst. I still remember the winter of 1993/1994 in the NE. We had something like 17 storms, most of them involving ice. It drove my brother to move to Tucson that summer. Glad to hear there is a new owner of the pottery studio. I was wondering what had happened with it.

Yes, it's good that the studio is staying open, even if the new owner is less than together just now.

>95 phebj: & 96: Yes...it's just a hiccup in the routine. I'm very glad it's staying open as it's about my only stress relief that I can count upon during the week.

While waiting for all the stuff I want to glaze to have its first firing, I've decided to do something totally whimsical. The studio has lots of stock glazes but I bought some small jars of some bright glazes and will use them on my Dr. Seuss vase ;-D

>97 TadAD: Oh wow, that looks really intricate and fun - can't wait to see what it looks like with the glazes!

97: What fun!

Ice is indeed the worst.

Bravo for plunging back into it..... I believe I took a break too and it did a world of good. For me and for my appreciation of IJ.

The whimsical amphora is amazing to me, I could not, in a million years, put on those flying buttresses! i know, I know, they're decorative handles.....

Roni mentioned that there's a new version of the Nerd Test. I don't remember the old one (and am too lazy to go find it and compare the questions) but it produces the same result.

It does seem to have a bug in it since it told me that I had taken the test before and, therefore, it wouldn't add me to the comparison database. Seems odd but maybe they're lumping old and new tests together.





Back in the real world...

Still plugging away at Infinite Jest. My new work project has me buried in trying to learn a million new things. I'm convinced that the people who do staffing for projects here are former military recruiters...you know, the ones that find out you are an expert truck mechanic so they assign you as a 92G Food Service Specialist, a.k.a. cook.

But Tad--you are an Uber Cool Nerd God, so you can handle it! ;-) Sorry.

*bows respectfully at the altar of the Uber Cool Nerd God* ;-)

Sorry for the work problems. It's always uncomfortable to be yanked out of a realm of confidence and interest and plunked down in a job that offers neither. I hope you find the job engaging as you go forward.

Just checking in to be a bit awed at all you have going on. *Baba Yaga* is on the list, and I'm off to take the Nerd test again.

>103 kidzdoc:: Piffle! If you read a lot of Asimov, which I did back in the day, you learn things like the age of the sun and what elements it can emit, so the Science/Math scores should come down because they are just collateral damage.

If they had asked "How do you know the length of the 100 Years War?" they would have upped my Dumb/Dork/Awkward score significantly since I learned it in game chat while playing an online game with a history major.

Etc.

If they really wanted a Nerd Test, wouldn't it have been fun if they had Sheldon Cooper write the questions?!

(Yes, I know he's a fictional character! *smile*)

Hi Tad, just checking in and enjoying your posts. Are you going to get walloped by this storm?

I'm pretty impressed with your Dr. Seuss vase, Tad and with your status as an Uber Cool Nerd God;-)

Tad, this was posted by PBS on Facebook today:

Here are the most recent of our major programs to become available for online streaming on pbs.org. These programs have been broadcast on PBS since Friday night:

Friday 2/8
Shakespeare Uncovered | Hamlet with David Tennant
http://video.pbs.org/video/2333221759

Just checking in. Still wading along through IJ. I'm going to be very interested to see where this book ends up for me in terms of rating. There are moments when I'm feeling "best read" and moments when I'm feeling "it's okay." I suppose that type of thing is somewhat inevitable in any book that doubles as a doorstop, but this one seems more so.

Part of the difficulty is that I just don't like Absurdism or surrealism — period, end of story, do not pass Go — so the Applause-O-Meter goes down in those sections. But...wow!...can this guy write emotions so that you can feel them, and then the Applause-O-Meter just soars.

For fans:

heh.

Just back from Dallas, where neither hotel nor convention center had public WiFi, so way behind on threads. However, I did finish Infinite Jest on the trip. Whew!...will definitely be reading some fluff for the next one or two simply to decompress.

Welcome home and congratulations on finishing Infinite Jest!

Congratulations on completing Infinite Jest! I look forward to your final thoughts on it. And what hotel or convention these days doesn't have public WiFi? What's with that!

>114 ronincats:: Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the convention center didn't have it and the hotel wanted $25 a day for it, which I found too absurd to consider.

25 a day????? Means the folks who organized yr. conference didn't put the hotel peoples' feet to the fire....... they try to get away with as much as they can these days, but actually, they cave in when you press hard. So complain if there is a 'feedback' form.

What am I thinking!!! Back to add congrats on finishing IJ!

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

maybe, maybe not

Bottom Line: ...urkle...glb...glb... ← the sound of a brain trying to re-boot

---

I'm not even sure where to start. When I comment on a book, I like to give some little indication of the plot...not spoilers, just something to provide a general idea. However, a major ingredient of the Infinite Jest experience is that you don't know anything about what is going on in advance (vide infra…yes, get used to little Latin phrases if you choose to read this book).

Another option is a note or two about the themes, if such is relevant to the type of novel at hand. Yeah, well, see my previous point. And, even if I were inclined to spoiler-ize the themes, it would be hard to put a cap on that particular fire hydrant short of ten or so pages of text.

So, since there's not much I'm willing to say about the content of the book, I can talk about the experience of reading the book. Unfortunately, that, itself, isn't an easy thing to sum up either. I liked it; in fact, some of it moved me so much that I couldn't help but think about my favorite reads list for 2013. I hated it; in fact, some of it had me screaming, "WTF?!?" and not in a good way.

See, I don't like books where I spend inordinate amounts of time saying, "Pat, I'd like to buy a clue about what is going on." A little obscurity can be mysterious and exciting, but the word 'little' is not appropriate in this regard in this book.

Neither do I enjoy surreal fiction…as in, really don't enjoy it. Elite armies of legless assassins in wheelchairs; top-ranked junior tennis players who are blind or drag IV stands around the court while they play; packs of dangerous, feral hamsters: all these things leave me cold.

Nothing changed with respect to these as a result of reading Infinite Jest; I still dislike them and did so while reading. And, yet, it is almost accurate to say that it didn't really matter a lot of the time because Wallace writes of obsession and depression and fear and so much more in characters so unbelievably real that I could not help but love them or hate them or simply react to them. For all I kicked and screamed, this book engrossed me, sucked me into it and didn't let me divert myself to anything else. I normally read two or three books simultaneously, but it didn't matter how many longing glances I cast at my pile of unread books (some by favorite authors); when there was free time, I went back to Wallace.

I say almost didn't matter because I found myself asking over and over whether we really needed drag queen federal agents and whether it was really necessary that I coin myself a neologism of acischronological. In the end, I have to say, "I don't know." Would it be the same book, would Kate Gompert absolutely showing me crippling depression have stood out so starkly if it hadn't been surrounded by the other? Maybe not. Probably not.

And so, I can't really say I loved it or hated it. I can say it consumed me for the last month. I can say I'll read it again someday. Probably.

Neither can I recommend or discourage it for other readers; you have to make your own decision. I can only offer some advice.

If you don't have the energy for a marathon read, think twice. 980 pages of story. 99 pages of endnotes that should be read. 16+ pages of almost mandatory re-read of the first chapter. Multi-page sentences. Endnotes that have endnotes of their own. Effort Required.

If you are a firm believer in the 50 Page Rule, think twice. You won't even get an hors d'oeuvre of payoff for about 68 pages (in my opinion) and have to be willing to endure a couple hundred before it starts to come together or even make real sense.

If you Need To Know What Is Going On, think twice. You won't. Not for a while. At the end, you still may not be sure about some things.

If you absolutely require closure, think many times. Still trying not to provide spoilers, let me just say that Wallace doesn't give it to you. You have to create it if you can.

If you do decide to embark on this journey: have a good dictionary handy, maybe re-read Hamlet first (copious references), understand that feeling frustrated and depressed at times, and occasionally even bored, is par.

It's an experience I'm very glad I didn't miss.

Wow, what a great review of Infinite Jest Tad! I can't decide if I want to read it or not but I feel like I should because it sounds like a once in a lifetime reading experience. Thanks for all the caveats. I will approach with caution. Now I'm off to thumb your review.

Knowing all the questions you went in to reading this book with, that's a rather amazing review, Tad! Wow!

Tad, I'm beaming. That's a great review, especially for somebody who dragged himself kicking and screaming a lot of the way through. I'm glad you read *IJ* too and very glad that you took us with you. (You should have an extra 12 years or so of complete compos mentis on the strength of dealing with a book so far out of your comfort zone. I would have to go back to The Fabric of the Cosmos to have anything like your experience.)

Wonderful review and I'm glad I have it on my shelf Tad although now, I'm not sure if it isn't more like a loaded gun rather than a deeply desired, soon-to-be-read book. I guess I'll just say that I'm closer to reading it now than I was before I read your review, which I was anxiously awaiting. BTW, how helpful was the IJ thread?

Good morning Pat, Roni, Peggy and Bonnie. Thank you.

Bonnie, no, it didn't really help. However, I think it could have helped had I been approaching IJ differently.

I chose to read it the way Wallace thrust it upon people, without all the commentary, explanation, theme analysis, reference citation, etc. that has grown up in the intervening years. So much of the story is deliberately obscure at first and then gradually exposed and explained as things progress and I wanted (??) to experience that. So, I deliberately avoided threads where people were discussing pieces of the book in detail and I refrained from asking a number of questions where I thought the answer might be a spoiler for something later in the book.

However, that balances against the fact that some of what was underneath the words on the page went whoosh right over my head, only detectable in some hypothetical second reading — if at all by me — when I have a better idea of what is going on.

And there's the fact that my breadth of reading isn't as great as that of people who have studied literature and philosophy (including Wallace). So, while I could smile on catching a Shakespeare or Burgess reference, I've never read Pynchon (for example) and those references (I'm told they exist) escaped me utterly. I think it's perfectly valid to want to capture that deeper stream of understanding, especially in a book where a re-read would be such an investment.

All a long way of saying I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do it and having a discussion thread could have a lot of benefits, depending upon your druthers.

What a wonderfully well expressed review, Tad - wonderful review - what I like is how sturdily and steadily you stuck with your course of reading it 'raw' so to speak.

I read IJ (and Pynchon, Joyce and several other authors this way) with the computer propped open - to look at maps, paintings, pictures of things that are mentioned, look up da big woids, investigate references I suspect but don't quite get, etcetera....and that is the way that I am comfortable with..... I like feeling my understanding of thing expanding as I go...... I know I reread and reread IJ as I read it, going over and over pages and notes..... It is a different approach, certainly - everyone has to find the one they feel comfortable with ultimately.

I hope you have found the Youtube link to the Eschaton game; it is very funny.

I'm pressed for time this am - would like to talk more about it!

Tad - You did it! Finishing Infinite Jest is quite an accomplishment. Welcome to the club. You beautifully expressed the same ambivalent feelings I had after reading it. Big thumb from me! Now, wishing you good luck to settling into a "normal" reading experience. It's hard to come back down to earth after an IJ high!

Crikey, you did it! Thoroughly enjoyed your review. You took one for the team, Tad, because there's no way I'm going to tackle that monster. *big thumb*

>123 sibylline:-125: Thanks Lucy, Donna, Tui.

Tripwire by Lee Child



Audio book for the gym. It had way too much As You Know, Bob for me to enjoy it as much as I could have. Perhaps this was due to the fact that it was an audio book and I couldn't just skip my eyes down over those sections. A bit of mindless fun, but eminently forgettable.

Finally! Stuff is starting to come out of the kiln from the new ceramic studio owner. Only two of my things so far, but it's a start.

So, to justify the other part of this thread's title, here's what I call my Hoop Skirt Pitcher. Roughly 14" tall...just right to hold about a pitcher of beer without all the carbonation escaping. ;-) Except I'll probably just use it for decoration. The white blemishes on the front are actually just reflections; I was too lazy to spend any real time taking a snapshot.

Very nice!

What a lot of character that jug has.

You're getting really good at this!

Really nice Tad.

Great piece of pottery Tad.

Thank you all.

What the Family Needed by Steven Amsterdam



Early Reviewer book

This book was a rather good idea that somehow failed to gel completely for me.

The idea is fairly simple: seven members of a family reach points in their lives where they are seriously troubled. Each of them, unbeknownst to the others, developers a singular super power that helps them (maybe) move onward. It's told in the form of seven chapters, each so distinct as to be, effectively, a short story.

What worked for me was the way in which Amsterdam treated the events. This isn't written as a fantasy or science fiction novel. The powers are treated much more matter-of-factly; no one becomes a super hero saving the world from destruction. Instead, they try to mend their lives as Amsterdam explored — to an extent — how just one little ability to alter the reality of our lives can make a difference.

What didn't work for me was the lack of continuity and closure in lives of the characters. The episodic nature of the book doesn't allow you to remain with any individual to the end of their story and the final resolution had a distinctly deus ex machina whiff to it.

This is a very quick read and I think it would be much better if it weren't. It is a rather odd blend of compelling and disappointing at the same time, where I liked it but could have liked it much more. As such, I'd tentatively recommend it, suggesting readers decide on how much the blurbs and spoiler reviews call to them and then deciding if they want to invest 260-some pages of time.

>128 TadAD: Beautiful!

Star Light by Hal Clement



Honestly, I've just run out of steam on the Mesklin stories. I enjoyed Mission of Gravity for what it was. However, the rather unexciting tone and the total focus on showing off science at the expense of character and rousing plot just got too dry for me. These books are long and I ended up skimming the last quarter of this one.

Ah well - I think too, the fact that science has moved on too, makes these harder to enjoy. I started it and bogged, never even got as far as putting it on the 'currently reading' list - however, I may slog back and get through it as part of the 'history of sf' program I'm on. Heaven knows why I do these things to myself!

Gun Machine by Warren Ellis



Another Early Reviewer book...although one I had to buy myself since the copy from the publisher never arrived.

Somehow, I got an entirely wrong impression of this book from the blurb. I was thinking it would be some kind of thriller with elements of the supernatural. Perhaps not quite Butcher's Harry Dresden but definitely in the vein of Wilson's Repairman Jack. Instead it's just a plain ol' suspense thriller.

That's okay...I like those, too.

Basically, we have a fairly gritty police procedural, full of the dark moods and cynical outlooks common to noir. I think that Ellis' background as a comic book writer gave him that little extra punch when it came to writing the short, vivid scene. The characters are well-realized and colorful, if not incredibly deep in this first volume (it's easy to see this as the start of a series). The plot moves along nicely and, while you can figure out some of the stuff in advance, there's no sense that the author has given away everything at the start. The scenery is quite evocative of Manhattan, both old and new.

Fate assists the protagonist detective a bit too much via luck and coincidence, so the reader needs to turn off the 'Oh, come on!' response a tiny bit. I didn't think the ending had quite the impact that the rest of the book had but it was certainly adequate (and I'm not trying to damn with faint praise).

This has that feeling of something that might pick up a bit of a cult following. That wouldn't be bad...it was fun.

The Six-Gun Tarot by R. S. Belcher



Bottom Line: A wild ride full of some of the most colorful characters you'll meet in a while. A little too ambitious and chockablock with side stories, but certainly entertaining.

---

Start with a western. Add some steampunk and some classic horror mythos. Have stories of Lucifer's Fall meet Native American Trickster legends meet Chinese creation myths of Pangu. Add the Divine Feminine plus Joseph Smith's Golden Plates. Stir it together with a wide assortment of other eerie and weird and you have the town of Golgotha, Nevada.

This book had been getting some minor buzz on some blogs I read and Library Journal gave it a starred review, so I thought it might provide a little escapist diversion.

Wow! It certainly was a wild ride. Belcher has populated this book with one of the most colorful and entertaining cast of characters I've seen in a while, and they rollick through a plot that doesn't really let up for a second. It kinda works.

However, 'kinda' is not 'totally'. The flaw in this book is that it's simply too much for its 364 pages. Even though Belcher has reserved a good chunk of the things you encounter as stories for another day, there's still so much in this one that it seems a bit cluttered and choppy. It might have been better had the order of assassins dedicated to Lilith or the local alchemist resurrecting the dead also been left for another day when we could get a truly satisfying bite out of them. The time regained could have been spent on this story's main arc of a Lovecraftian horror and its ancient guardian.

It was fun. It was certainly escapist. If you enjoy this whole strange olio of genres then, by all means, give this a try. I hope Mr. Belcher returns to this well. If he does, I hope he pulls in the reins a bit, focuses on one or two of the many intriguing characters, secure that there's plenty of time to tell all the tales.

ETA: Despite the fact that the cover art seems very tweener to me, there's a fair bit of violence and gore in this book, in case that matters to you.

Kikwaakew by Joseph Boyden



This is a short story showing a small snippet in Xavier Bird's life, written with the same simple and beautiful language of Three Day Road. Very little happens in the story though much is hinted at, almost as if he's preparing us for another extended tale (perhaps his new book later this year), but it's nonetheless memorable — a poignant moment of concern, then happiness and finally fear for the future.

Limbus, Inc. by Benjamin Kane Ethridge, Brett J. Talley, Joseph Nasisse, Anne C. Petty & Jonathan Maberry



This is a shared world anthology of short stories that was on the Early Reviewer list. I checked it mainly because I had enjoyed Jonathan Maberry's Joe Ledger series a bit. The premise of this series was an employment agency that found the exact right person for a job...a job that was usually something out of science fiction or horror.

In general, the book didn't work for me.

Benjamin Kane Ethridge's science fiction story, "The Slaughter Man", opened the book and was okay. Nothing special, but it set the stage for what was to come.

Brett J. Talley's horror story, "The Sacrifice", was a take on the virgin sacrifice concept. It was the best idea in the book. The writing was okay but I never really got invested in the characters enough that I will remember this story long-term.

Joseph Nassise wrote "One Job Too Many", a fairly straightforward and predictable time travel paradox story.

Anne C. Perry's "We Employ" skirted the borders between fantasy and science fiction and just left me cold. It was under-explained and the plot line made no real sense.

Maberry's "Strip Search" was the best-written of the bunch. It flowed smoothly and quickly and I enjoyed it. However, there was a sense that it was one of those short stories meant to flesh out a series of novels.

As a whole, it especially didn't work that the authors couldn't really agree on what Limbus, Inc. was. It was like they sent each other an email that said "employment agency" and left it at that.

All-in-all, not recommended, even for fans of the genre.

Just as I thought, Tad...nothing measures up to Infinite Jest. I had that same problem after reading it. I must read some of Boyden's books. He has quite a following on LT. It looks like Through Black Spruce is the only one my local library has.

>143 Donna828:: Hi Donna. You really should read Three Day Road before Through Black Spruce.

I love the blue pitcher! Very decorative!
I must say it looks as though your recent reading has been in the nature of taking a few for the team. I'll have a look at The Six Gun Tarot (no Touchstone for me), but a look is all I'm likely to take.
And I must get to Boyden soon!

Hi Tad, 4 stars for that Boyden Kindle single you told me about and a tease towards the new one has landed that on my Must Read Soon shelf. It can satisfy me until his new book is published in September. Yay! Write faster Mr. Boyden!

>146 brenzi:: Exactamundo!

Hi Tad! Finally catching up on your thread. I was amazed/shocked/amused to read your review of Infinite Jest after all your hair raising commentary along the way. :-p How would you compare it to Ulysses?

Loved the pitcher. My daughter is firing up a storm at school this month. They are very cute, but not delicate, if you know what I mean.

I enjoyed Three Day Road, but haven't picked up the second. Is he really writing another novel about Xavier? Hmm.

>148 labfs39:: Hi Lisa. I was more engrossed in Infinite Jest than I was in Ulysses. I was conscious with both that I was missing things but, somehow, the characters of IJ riveted me more. I do think I need to re-read Ulysses some day, perhaps with some kind of guide to help me understand what I'm missing.

Thank you about the pitcher.

On the Boyden: He has said that Three Day Road was the start of a trilogy. However, I'm not clear that The Orenda is actually that third book. The brief blurb I saw said it will deal with Canada's formative years.

I read Ulysses as a first year in college, and I think I was more enamored with the challenge than I was with the plot. I remember being so impressed that he uses 14 languages in the book. Lol. I'm glad I read it, as it comes up so often in other contexts, more recently for me in an introduction discussing Hrabal's palavering technique. To be honest, I had never heard of Infinite Jest before you began reading it. How influential do you think it has been and will be on contemporary lit?

Oh wow, Lisa, I don't know. I'm just a tech geek who joined LibraryThing in 2008 to try to diversify out of genre reading.

If I had to guess, I think a fair bit.

Heck, if nothing else, its structural and thematic similarity to Ulysses might mean lots of comparative stuff in literature courses which might, in turn, influence the young writers there.

But, beyond that, if I had to pick a specific area, I think Wallace is fighting against the cynicism of modern literature, often by lampooning it. I don't remember the specific citation — and finding it in 1079 pages would be difficult — but he used Hal (one of the main characters of IJ) as a mouthpiece to rail against the modern trend of being cynical about everything and viewing simple compassion as somehow the province of naive saps.

Both in what he has characters say, and in the humanity of the characters themselves, he seems (to me) to be saying that it's okay to care. And that the ordinary problems of this world aren't too trivial for our attention.

Given the 'fame' of this book, deserved or otherwise, I can't help but think this will affect the next generation of writers.

But that's just an uneducated opinion.

Most definitely not uneducated, Tad.

I would concur with what Tad said about Wallace - breathtaking compassion - it's remarkable. I haven't read Ulysses since my late twenties, but I don't remember an emotional resonance quite so profound, although it is certainly present in The Dead which I reread frequently and in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which I also find myself rereading from time to time.

It's hard to know what the effect Wallace will have. I'm not 'up' on the truly contemporary writing scene, but here and there I come across a story that I suspect owes a lot to Wallace - often it is a person caught in some kind of surreal situation, almost like a loop, and often there is a very specialized but very contemporary vocabulary.

Not sure that makes any sense.

Interesting. Thank you both. I am rather ignorant of 21st century fiction (especially before LT) and was completely oblivious to Wallace until Tad's commentary on Infinite Jest. It sounds as though Wallace may end up having significant influence, although as you say it is hard to predict. My question stemmed from curiosity as to whether he was the type of author who tries too hard to be nouveau and intellectual or whether he was the real deal. Although I don't think I'll start IJ in the near future, I may have to challenge myself with this one eventually.

>153 labfs39:: I never got the sense he tried too hard. Certainly not with nouveau. In fact, it's almost like he was trying to return to an era when stories cared, not be new-fangled for new-fangled's sake.

On the intellectual front, I don't think he had to try very hard at all. There's an intellectual aspect to IJ but it doesn't come across as forced...merely as the natural writing of someone who was very smart, very well educated and very quick. I saw the same things in an essay of his I just read (comments to follow soon) and in an interview with him that I saw on YouTube.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: An Essay by David Foster Wallace



Bottom Line: An entertaining and thought-provoking look at the reality of luxury cruising.

---

You can pick up David Foster Wallace's essay on luxury Caribbean cruise trips as a Kindle Short from Amazon. Short is, perhaps, a bit of a misnomer since this piece is anything but. It's not the 368 pages that Amazon will tell you it is — that's the length of entire book of the same name of which this was one part — but it's not an E. B. White, read it in ten minutes, undertaking either.

It's laugh-out-loud funny in places, penetratingly observant in others, and quite disgruntled throughout. Wallace doesn't really like luxury cruising and it shows. Oh, he finds it luxurious and even narcotic but, in a real sense, that's exactly the point.

This essay, very definitely, bears the hallmark of the author of Infinite Jest. First, as I mentioned, it is long, maybe a 100 pages although Kindle only lists "locations". Second, you might need a dictionary once or twice. Third, there are surreal moments except, in this case, they are real. Fourth, there are endnotes...yep...137 of them, some of them multi-page, even a couple where the endnotes have endnotes. But, most of all, it's the return to themes of hollow entertainment and consumerism and caring about one's fellow man.

If you don't mind a bit of a rant, enjoy a bit of humor, and are willing to think about our lifestyle, this is worth a read.

For some reason I never finished the above book of essays - I have no idea why - but the tennis ones were good weren't they? I must get back to it. I think events just rolled over me and it wasn't the right book at the time....

I didn't read them. This download was just the title essay.

Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest by Greg Carlisle

which is an average of for its stated purpose and for its real purpose

Bottom Line: Misrepresented, imo. This is neither a study nor a commentary. It is a note-taking service and guide.

---

I was disappointed in this book. The disappointment was in how it was positioned more than its content.

It was self-positioned as "the first critical work to provide detailed and thorough commentary on...Infinite Jest." By that statement, I thought this was a work that — read after I finished Infinite Jest — would provide, well, a study. I thought it would be something that discussed and, perhaps, explained a lot of what I had just read.

Not so much. It's neither a study nor much of a commentary, in my opinion.

What this really is is a guide to be read simultaneously with Infinite Jest. It's primarily a note-taking service that keeps track of the characters for you, calls your attention to thematic references you may have missed (though most of them hit you over the head so soundly that you didn't miss them), and provides a lifeline in terms of the book's twisted chronology.

It's seems rather good at this. If you were to alternate reading a chapter of Infinite Jest with one of Elegant Complexity, I think your brain will hurt less. It's even nicely structured so that each chapter is divided two sections: one devoted purely to documentation and one that notes themes and educates you on external references. By skipping the latter, you could avoid any hint of outside information...although Carlisle is very careful not to spoil things anyway.

However, calling the latter commentary is stretching the definition of that word a bit, in my opinion. A brief paragraph to say, "Note that we've got more of the color blue theme in XXX" or "Note the similarity to Hamlet here" isn't really commentary so much as attention-getting and educating. There's no interpretation.

Only at the end is there some real discussion about What Happened and What It All Meant...Maybe. And this was relatively brief.

So, for me, it wasn't very satisfying. I can see how this would be a recommended read for concurrent reading but is not recommended for retrospective reading. Change the blurb and advertising and I'd rate this higher.

Ah -- now I get it - reading too fast. The irony is I was dying to get to THAT essay but was being 'good' slogging through all the other ones first. There is a part of me that has been drawn, sometimes, to the idea of a cruise- but then I cringe and think, what am I thinking???!!!!! The ones that tempt me though are those canal boats in France or castles down the Rhine type. Where at least you can get off and do something.

Are you still glad that you didn't read anything concurrently with the novel itself? I read so many different commentary type things while I was reading it that I haven't read anything since..... although I plan to read the book again sometime in the next decade, that is for sure. Although to be fair I should read Ulysses again first.

I am now officially declaring a caesura on David Foster Wallace reading and Infinite Jest reading, although not discussion. Time to focus on Anna Karenina and all the stuff that got backlogged.

>159 sibylline:: I have very little desire to do cruises for many of the reasons DFW listed. He's not the first to report feeling hollow and depressed. There are two exceptions. 1) An Alaska cruise because everyone tells me that it's so much better than trying to do it by following the coast in a car. 2) French canal boats as you mention. Ever since reading Kimbrough's Floating Island, I've had a desire to do it.

Yes, I'm still glad I read IJ "raw". It made the experience seem much more visceral. I will re-read it someday and, at that time, I'll probably use aids and references in addition to simply knowing for myself what went on. I'll also probably read Ulysses right before, plus Hamlet yet again. Maybe even Gravity's Rainbow (for the first time) but maybe not.

Somehow another Kindle single just landed on my iPad. I waiver between thinking I'll read IJ soonish to I'm never ever reading it. I seldom read more than one book at a time and it sounds like that would almost be necessary with IJ being as intense and dense as it appears to be. Today I'm thinking I will read it but I'll read the essay first to get an idea of his style and to laugh a bit.

Is anyone still considering cruises with all the recent events? Maybe people have just eliminated Carnival cruises. I know people who loved the Alaska cruises and still others, who were used to Caribbean cruises and hated the Alaskan cruises. The river cruises in Europe seem to get reviews from people. My sister recently went on a cruise around the Gulf of Mexico and had a mildly irritating experience, enough so that she probably will not do another. She was taken by surprise (shock, really) by the size of the ship (?)and the distance to get to the amenities. The worst part though was that the cruise line (Carnival, of course) told them to be at the dock in Tampa by 12:00 P.M. and then kept all the people standing in line in the very hot Tampa sun for 6 hours before they could START boarding, which took hours in itself. Not a good way to start off your vacation.

The only cruising I've done wasn't really cruising - but taking the Norwegian mail boat (unspellable, but something like 'heutarutteh' is how they pronounced it - from Bergen to Trondheim with a few little stops. We loved it! Fjords, clouds, sea and the interplay of light between land sky water just blew me away! To get to Bergen we took a train over the mountains from Oslo and that was also really nice. And weirdly I have NO MEMORY AT ALL of how we got from Trondheim to wherever we went next.....which is slightly disturbing, but whatever. Maybe we took the mail boat back, I can't say...... That is a trip I cannot recommend more highly.

The thing about cruising is that:

1. I think I would just sit and read all the time because I'm not big on shuffleboard or bad lounge acts.
2. If I'm going to sit around and read, I can do that by a pool or on a beach.
3. The idea of joining a cattle line to see anything at the shore stops invokes my hatred of crowds. I want to go when there's no line, not a big one!
4. While I hear that many of the ships have unlimited, good food...does my waistline really need unlimited, good food?

The things that's appealing about a canal boat trip is that you go at your own pace with no crowds.

Exactly. The crowd thing being the hardest for me.

Amen to 1-4.

I'm with you on 1-4. I still dream about doing a North Atlantic crossing, and dreaming is all that I can afford anyway even if it were possible. But a canal boat or maybe even a cruise down the Rhine or Lucy's Norwegian mail boat - all those sound good.
I think I said somewhere else that I read Ulysses the first and only time (and I should try again) with a guide in hand. It was deadly. Next time I'll just read it and get what I can get.
Tad, have you read the Brandon Sanderson yet? I'm tempted, but I have too much going on right now to get into it. I'm guessing that you're in pretty much the same position unless you've been reading it for light relief.

Just touching base...

A hellish weekend in Hartford at one of my older daughter's competitions. Did anyone else know that Hartford completely shuts down on Sundays? Jeez! By 1:30 almost every restaurant was closed and the lines were literally out the door on the remaining since we had thousands of people geographically pinned. By 4:30 in the afternoon there wasn't a restaurant open within 2 blocks of the convention center. Even Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks were closed!

Couple that with the fact that the parental subset of those thousands of people were seriously overloaded on bass-heavy music, too much standing, utter boredom (12 hours of presence for 2½ minutes of performance by your daughter), etc. and you can imagine the tempers. Hartford is now #1 on several people's least-favorite cities for competitions.

Work has been super-busy since I got back Tuesday, so not much reading. I did finish a fabulous novelette on which I'll get a review done soon.

My 5 Year Thingaversary passed and my 5 year 75er-versary comes in a while. My how time flies.

Looking back at my reasons for joining this group, I'd say mission accomplished. My stated goal was to diversify my reading away from about 98% speculative fiction/thriller/mystery. Looking at the last couple of years, those types of reading are actually below 50% now and I've started to hack away at the "I should read that some day" types of things.

I've also found I enjoy international literature/literature in translation. My world map has moved from just a couple hits to some "color" — nothing like the coverage of people who seriously read globally, but at least it's more interesting for me to look at it. :-)

Eggtooth by Solla Carrock



What a wonderful novelette this was! Weaving themes of first contact with aboriginal people against the unintentional harm of cultural arrogance, Carrock has produced a gem. The language is seductive and dreamlike. The current of the story line has all the inevitability of a morality tale and the warmth of myth.

I suppose this story is technically science fiction, told as it is from the viewpoint of a non-human...but no, not really. Don't let a lack of interest in that genre color your decision. Skip just a few sentences and this could be a story of Europeans venturing deep into the rain forests of the Amazon.

Sixty years ago, magazines, publishing houses and even newspapers would print intermediate length fiction. I guess the economics of doing so didn't work in the modern era and the days of the novelette and novella seemed largely to be gone except for the occasional anthology and the few surviving pulp magazines. However, one thing on the positive side of the e-publishing ledger is that all those intermediate story lengths become feasible once again.

This story is, only 67 pages in length, is exactly why that is such a good thing.

Hi Tad. Just stopping by to say hello - still not real time for reading and none of really spending time on LT but I want to say hello once in a while.

Infinite Jest looks like a real monster. Better you than me! Eggtooth does look interesting though.

Ruth

By the way, Carl says to say hi also.

Hi Tad, I just came from thumbing that review of Eggtooth which sounds fascinating. I will definitely look for it. Interesting your reasons for joining LT and how you quickly achieved your results. I actually joined when I read about how you could use the LT oracle to determine whether or not you would like a book. Hah! We all know how well that works. But along the way I found that I broadened my reading so much that I was actually quite amazed at all I had missed over the years. I guess classics are my most preferred genre now.

Hi Ruth and Bonnie. Thanks for stopping by this whistle stop.

Finity's End by C. J. Cherryh



Just a re-read while I'm awaiting my latest fix of Cherryh in the form of Protector due out in four days.

While most of the Alliance-Union novels can be read in any order, I'd definitely read Downbelow Station before this one to get the backstory. Otherwise, it takes place some time after Tripoint.

This is one of my favorite books in the Company War series because it ties so many thread lines together and draws us into the post-War period. Many of Cherryh's books don't really have a hero protagonist but this one seems even more that way than most. I like it for that...the everyman dealing with a stressful situation and doing a lot of growing up in the process.

And a blessed Eastertide to you too, Tad!
And a belated Happy Thingaversary and 75-aversary too! Like you, my reading choices have widened immensely from my presence here, or maybe it's age or having time to read real stuff. I do so love it all!
The Hartford weekend does sound like a rarefied Hell; too bad that randy teens can't be forced to undergo it from a parent's perspective as a positive means of birth control.
You make me glad again that I have copies of both Tripoint and Finity's End on the way from PBS. I may try one of those next instead of going on to *Foreigner 7*. We'll see. I added my thumb to your review of Eggtooth, but I'll likely not read it, which I guess is a little stupid, but that's the way I am.

Eggtooth sounds fascinating.

I'm so excited that it's the weekend and I can sit down and feast on Finity's End!

Have a fine Easter.

>174 LizzieD:: If you're going to defer part of the series, it's good to do it after finishing a multiple of 3, especially 6->7 porch_reader: since that really does pick up with a whole new thread after their return.

Glad you survived the weekend in Hartford. Ugh!

Happy Fifth Thingaversary! I too have expanded my reading in all directions since joining LT. Graphic novels, literature from Asia and Africa, authors whom I would never have found on my own. BTW, I love your map.

A belated happy Thingaversary to you, Tad, and Happy Easter to you and your family.

OMG, Protector arrived yesterday and is looking at me in much the same way as my dog, Duncan, does when I'm eating a hamburger...beseeching. But I'm traveling Friday to Monday and I told myself it would be perfect to take along on the trip.

I have no willpower when it comes to Duncan, why would I think this would be different? I have a zillion other books I could take on the trip...especially Anna Karenina which is quite conveniently (for travel purposes) in electronic form...

I'm laughing as I read your post above.......

Reminds me of a Girl Scout song I know:

I really shouldn't.
She told me not to...
But I will!

Run down the hill, scoop up the itsy bitsy baby rabbit, and bop him on the head!

Since nothing on the book front to report, I made a set of mugs. Unfortunately, the blue glaze didn't behave the way I intended. It broke and ran. You can see the former around the lip and the handle edges and the latter bleeding down into the clear glaze on the white background.

I'm a little disappointed since there was a fair amount of time spent on the relief carving of six. If they still annoy me in a week or so, I guess I can make another set.

And, even though I hated Hartford — and generally don't like cheerleading competitions anyway — I'm still proud of my daughter, so I'll show her off.

Here's the start of one of her tumbling passes, doing an Arabian Stepout through to a Full Twist. Unfortunately, another parent's head is just to my 10:00. So, as I swung the camera to track her, all I got was a great picture of a hairdo instead. So you only get to see the Arabian and not the Full. But she stuck it! :-)

Ohhhh impressive, Tad. I didn't have cheerleading competitions to attend but my children played travel baseball/softball and I followed gymnastics competitions all over the place. Looking at it from afar now, I'm glad I have that in my memory place although at the time it seemed to be such a chore. I'm not sure how much it added to their lives as adults either although at the time it seemed important.

That's too bad about the mugs, Tad. That is beautiful carving. I always am fearful at the glazing stage, especially when I have something I particularly like, that something will happen to mar it.

And those are amazing pictures of your daughter doing amazing things!

Wow, your daughter is quite an athlete, Tad. What a great Dad you are for sitting through a long meet for a short routine. You must have had a book or an e-reader to keep you company.

Belated congrats on your 5-year Thingaversary. I joined 7 years ago after reading an artlcle in the WSJ. It sounded too good to be true, but I must say that it turned out to be even better than I expected.

I love your reading map. I started one this year and look forward to filling it in. I need to work on Africa!

That's quite a bit of air under that girl! We just don't know, when they are little things in diapers, what they are going to end up doing, do we?

My daughter thanks you all. :-D

>185 ronincats:: Yes, I've become very nervous on glazing. I had become pretty familiar with the way the old owner mixed her glazes and did firing, so I could predict what would happen. Now, even though the new owner nominally uses the same recipes, they are different and her firing techniques are certainly different. I think hotter as a lot of people are finding stuff running more. I'm sure I'll adjust eventually but, right now, a lot of disappointment. I've circular filed a LOT of pieces in the last few weeks. The mugs are borderline...I'm not really happy. I don't even like the irregular glazing down by the foot...it should have been a smooth line. I suspect I'll dump them.

>186 Donna828:: Yes, Africa is a big bunch o' blank space, isn't it? That and Mexico bother me since I feel I "should" read more in those areas. (And maybe Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Saudi Arabia since they're large. ;-D )

Since my criteria are 1) author is native to that country & 2) story is native to that country, I figure some countries may never get filled in. I mean, I can find Troost writing about Kiribati, but will I ever find a native Kiribatian writing about Kiribati? Heck, I hear that finding good Saudi literature is pretty darn hard.

Tad, I love that mug! Are you sure that the bleeding doesn't give a hand-crafted look? It breaks my heart to think that you'll break them if you remain dissatisfied. Oh well.
And congratulations on your high-flying daughter! Wow!
I'm too lazy to track down whether you've read Bolaño, whom Amazon claims is Mexican-Chilean. 2666, set in Mexico, is mesmerizing. On the other hand, it might drive you over the edge that *IJ* drove you to. I tried to track themes and motifs, etc., and finally gave up and just read. Anyway, that's my contribution for the day.

I'm with Peggy..... we have a marvelous collection of ceramics from a friend..... every fall he sells his 'seconds' for a pittance and we all fall over ourselves to buy his stuff. You are as good as he is, maybe better even as he doesn't try for some of the more complex shapes you do - his forte is glazing, ultimately. Anyhow the stuff that goes to shops is perfect and we are all so thrilled to get the rest. He thinks we are all crazy although the sale helps with his expenses. Maybe you could have an LT seconds sale!

Wow! Those are amazing pics, Tad. That has to have made Hartford worthwhile!

I wouldn't worry about that bit of bleeding, Tad. That looks like a good gripping handle. And I do like your fish.

We have a friend who was a potter. I feel really lucky to have a good collection of his stuff because he injured his wrist and might not pot again. Such a loss, as he was splendid.

Protector by C. J. Cherryh



I was a little surprised at how quiet this story was, after the same type of thing in Intruder. Other than a brief flurry right at the end, this entire book is story development. Cajeiri's human friends come down for his birthday party and the book is split about evenly between his fretting that the party will be delayed again and the reactions of Gene, Artur and Irene to their first experience on a planet. Only at the end is there a little more on the Shadow Guild situation. If you've come to love this series, it's enjoyable.

However, it does leave you wondering whether this series is really going to end with the next book, Peacemaker. It's the last one listed in her bibliography, but there sure is a lot of stuff left to resolve if it's done with the detail of the first fourteen. I do so hope that it won't all end with a bit of whimper.

Bitter Almonds by Laurence Cossé, translated from the French by Alison Anderson



I suspect that this will be a book that you either enjoy quite a bit or find rather boring; the middle ground doesn't seem particularly likely.

Édith is astonished that her immigrant housekeeper, Fadila, is illiterate — or analphabetic, the difference being important to some in the book — and decides to try teaching her to read. And tries. And tries. And tries. And then the book, rather suddenly, ends.

So, if it's plot that you're after, it's rather meager and I think this book will not suit you very well. You might want to pass this one by.

The meat in this story is to be found by realizing that the plot is simply a vehicle to let us meet Fadila. The advice to Édith about teaching is that it works best when you really know and understand your student. And, so, she acts as our proxy, allowing us to peer over her shoulder, as it were, catching glimpses of a life that is quite different from that of an ordinary Parisian...or, really, almost any Western...woman.

It's a life that has been hard, even devastating, at times. It is one where pleasures and triumphs arrive from things so simple that they could seem mundane to us. Yet, it's a life where dignity and worth have been found, and intrinsically rather than through circumstance.

I enjoyed that view and, so, I'm in the first category: enjoying the book that presented it, despite the rather sudden ending.

Sounds interesting. I'll bite.

I think you might like it, Lisa. Fadila is really a rather marvelous character. In general, I really enjoy the tastes of the Europa editors; I've liked so many of their books. I've liked some books more than others but I can't think of a total clunker in the ones that I've read so far.

Hi Tad

I'm way behind on visiting threads.

Thanks for the great review of Infinite Jest!

I send wishes for a good day for you!

Doggone it, I knew I should have stayed away. I don't have time to muscle *Foreigner 7* into the mix right now, but your review of Protector is spurring me toward it. And I think I'd like Bitter Almonds too....thanks for the hint.
Also, I second Lucy's suggestion about your seconds.

>198 LizzieD:: Sorry, Peggy. :-D

The pottery is really just frustration coming through. For the first year, it was about simply trying to do anything. Now that I can do simpler things, my mind's vision outstrips my abilities to execute. Intellectually I know that this is totally silly; I'm still a beginner. But that doesn't stop the frustration from appearing.

Tad, When you are next in Bethlehem, you might want to stop by the Linderman Library at Lehigh to look at this marvelous work of Audubon.



Your pottery is indeed a work of art!

Hi Tad, I've really enjoyed all the Europas I've read and I've got quite a few still unread on my shelves so I have them to look forward to. Looks like I should look for Bitter Almonds too. Excellent review.