Eliz M's progression through 1001+ books

Hello! I have always been an avid reader and fervent list lover. As early as second grade I cajoled the school librarians to provide me with a copy of the posted Recommended Reading lists for grades 4-6 and determinedly read my way through them. I have been collecting lists of books to read ever since. After finding the 1001 Books list in late 2007, I have focused primarily on reading books from it. I much prefer the 2008 (and later versions) for their expanded international scope.

According to Arukiyomi's fabulous spreadsheet, I have read 495 books from the combined list of 1305 books; I am not going to list them all here. As I tend to read too much too quickly and often forgot the basic plot of books I read not too long ago, I hope to use this space to collect random thoughts about the books I read and to encourage myself to be more mindful of what I read.

ETA: I am going to limit reviews to the books included in 2008 edition, which I own.

ETA: However, in order to match this list with Arukiyomi's spreadsheet (and to be higher up on the index), I will enumerate the books on _all_ the lists.

Welcome Eliz_M! 495 books from the list is quite a feat! I'm looking forward to reading your comments.

Wow, 495 is quite a chunk! Impressive stuff! Do you have anything big planned for #500?

Welcome to the group! I'd be interested to hear your personal highlights of the 495 you've read (and any real clangers to avoid!)

Adding my welcomes to the bunch - and seconding Jonny - we are all on the look out for the dreadful ones we need to get out of the way early on!

Thanks for the warm welcome!

For highlights, I'll just mention the handful of stunning books that I doubt I would have found without the 1001 List.

Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet is a languorous novel set on a banana plantation in an unnamed tropical location. I was blown away by the narrative voice -- written in third person, but one that only describes the events unfolding in the narrator's presence. It was weirdly, wonderfully as if the entire novel was written in stage directions. I was just so impressed by how the entire story evolved through these sparse descriptions and how the carefully constructed sentences were able to convey the interior of the narrator & main character. I loved it.

On Love by Alain de Botton (maybe it's the name?) is best described as a series of novelistic essays chronicling the arc of a failed relationship. I started reading this as a library book, but after a few pages I had to make an emergency trip to the bookstore and buy a copy so I could underline all the bon mots:

"A silence with an unattractive person implies they are the boring one. A silence with an attractive one renders you the tedious party."

"Whatever the pleasures of discovering mutual loves, nothing compares with the intimacy of landing on mutual hates."

"Certain things are said not because they will be heard, but because it is important to speak."

"While most of our self is led by the strict demands of timetables, our soul trails nostalgically behind, burdened by the weight of memory."

"We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and the awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease."

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is a novel I had known about, but would not have read without the prompting of the 1001 list. It is so much more than a "Vietnam" book! For me, it may have been my introduction to meta-fiction and I loved the unusual structure of the book. It is more a series of linked stories, interspersed with the author's comments on the stories and the nature of story-telling. One of the stories makes several appearances, each time rendered very differently. And, of course, the stories themselves are emotionally powerful.

As for books to avoid, that is much harder to discuss. For example, Jonny & BekkaJo were favorably discussing Dusklands somewhere and that was one of my least favorite books so far. I am not a fan of Coetzee's writing in general and for me that book managed to be both excruciatingly boring and distasteful.

How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Kelman rids his novel of a traditional English narrative framework to let the main character speak for himself in the Glaswegian vernacular. In a further liberating move, the text slips back and forth between the first and third person narrative voice, effacing the boundary between narrator and character and eliminating this traditional linguistic hierarchy."

How Late It Was, How Late is a reading experience unlike any other. What the quote above calls vernacular, I considered stream-of-conscious. Kelman embeds the reader in the inner world of a not very bright never-do-well, Sammy. The transitions from first to third person are so smooth, that I didn't quite notice to them. I actually thought it was completely in character for Sammy to think of himself in the third person, internal pep talks. In addition to the intriguing structure, I was fascinated by the premise. The novel opens with Sammy painfully regaining awareness of the world after a weekend of binge drinking, shortly followed by his coercing police into beating him senseless. In his next attempt at consciousness, the world does not come into focus; it doesn't come into view at all. The beating has left Sammy blind, isolated. The result is mesmerizing. I have never been so completely immersed in another person's existence. It's indescribable.

The End of the Story by Lydia Davis

Why it is included in the 1001 List: "The novel is in large part about itself, about the painful process of it's own making. Yet it is not seeking to subvert conventional modes of storytelling from some self-conscious and superior ironic perspective. Rather, it is about the strange paradox under which all writers (and non-writers) labor, namely that the very attempt to clarify our experience can end up obscuring it."

I really wanted to enjoy this novel. I love the title. I love self-reflective novels. I love non-linear stories. But I did not love The End of the Story.

The novel depicts a woman's struggle to coalesce her memories and interpretations of a recently ended affair in order to create a coherent narrative. The narrator is writing a novel about the affair and The End of the Story is about both the the affair and the process of writing about the affair:

"Although it was still the end of the story, I put it at the beginning of the novel, as if I needed to tell the end first in order to go on and tell the beginning, but the beginning didn't mean much without what came after, and what came after didn't mean much without the end. Maybe I did not want to have to choose a place to start, maybe I wanted all the parts of the story to be told at the same time."

I admire the attempt to write all the parts of the story at the same time while also demonstrating the impossibility of recreating the past. But to clearly present events non-sequentially with possible other events that are conflated or confused with the presented events, and to include a layer of commentary on the impossibility of remembering the past, takes more brilliance than Davis displays here.

#6, great review! I've been put off reading that one from other reviews and descriptions but this succeeds in totally intriguing me. One more for the TBR pile!

>8 annamorphic: Excellent! However, I see I left out a warning about the obscenities. Personally I am not bothered by excessive swearing, but I did notice an uptick of in my use of swear words the week I was reading it!

Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker

Why it is included in the 1001 list: ...it is a deeply idiosyncratic work that is both disturbing and seductive. While negotiating themes of death, sexuality, crime, and madness, this novel is in fact primarily about love--for both books and people. It is about the surreal disjunction between an author and his work, and the madness of the reader, who loves the book and its creator at the same time and yet distinctly."

Strangely, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel and yet was left cold by it at the same time. The language and the writing, while not enticing enough to be highlighted and quoted, is still polished and beautiful. But, it might have been too well-crafted. Everything fits together so neatly that there was little room for some of the characters to be human, and those that felt more real somehow didn't fit the plot in which they were enmeshed. There is one moment at the end that is so ridiculous it can only be SYMBOLIC, and, unfortunately, it colored my view of the book as a whole.

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

Why it is included in the 1001 list: Well, the entry for this book is pure plot summary, so presumably it was included in the list because it is a novel written by Ian McEwan.

Don't get me wrong, McEwan is a very good writer and I've enjoyed most of his books. But, this is not my favorite. It begins with an overly complicated, highly implausible event that is far too involved as a mechanism to bring two of the main characters into contact (A hot-air balloon accident? Are you serious?). The narrator, Joe, is a science writer and one of the themes of the book is his struggle to rationalize the irrational. However, including paragraph after paragraph of synopsis of the narrator's scientific articles does not demonstrate his rationality so much as it demonstrate the author's need to flaunt his research. Although a short novel, Enduring Love really should have been a novella.

Even so, I think it is worth reading. The novel is well-written and there is a moment of sheer brilliance when the author in a single exchange of sentences between two characters, changed my view of the story completely. it was like that moment when you've been staring at the image of old-hag with a big nose and a slight refocus reveals the young girl. Furthermore, McEwan does have a marvelous way with unreliable narrators.

Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist, orig. pub. 1810

Why it is included in the 1001 list: The themes of justice, the right to obtain it and the right to resist corruption are still relevant today, making Michael Kohlhaas a surprisingly contemporary read. The tale pivots on the ambiguity between justice and vengeance, from both the political side and that of the powerless individual."

I read the Art of the Novella edition, which was a lovely experience. It just seemed to be a good size and well designed. The general outlines of the story are familiar: a decent hard-working man is unfairly treated by someone in a position of authority and, as all attempts at legitimate redress fail, he takes it upon himself to punish the wrong-doer. I found the first quarter of the novel, the depiction of the wrongs done to Kohlhaas and his efforts to achieve justice through the legal system, engrossing. But after his initial act of vengeance, my interest flagged. It felt like the narration drew back at that point, as if the third-person narration shifted from one that overheard the thoughts of Kohlhaas to one that only observed and reported his actions. I am not sure if there was a difference in the writing, or if the initial act of vengeance was too disproportionate, causing me to lose my empathy for Kohlhaas. In any case, I found the rest of the novel to be more matter-of-fact and dry after this point.

Almost as enjoyable as reading the novella, was reading about it. Miachal Kohlhaas was based on the history of a real person. This novella, as well as and other writings by von Kleist, incorporated a realistic style in reaction to the aesthetics of Goethe. I was also fascinated by the list of people influenced by this work, as found on wiki:

Kafka devoted one of only two public appearances in his whole life to reading passages from Michael Kohlhaas. Kafka said that he "could not even think of" this work "without being moved to tears and enthusiasm."

The story had an influence on E. L. Doctorow's 1975 novel Ragtime, which uses similar plot elements and has a protagonist named "Coalhouse Walker". Doctorow himself called his book "a quite deliberate hommage" to Kleist's story.

The opening sentence of Das Parfum by German writer Patrick Süskind is an homage to the opening sentence of Michael Kohlhaas.

501. Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan, orig. pub. 1954

Why it is included in the 1001 list: Written when she was just 18 years old, Sagan's novel was an instant international best seller. With its description of overt sexuality, celebration of wealth and opulence, and intimation of same-sex desire, the novel shocked and titillated its first readers paving the way to a more permissive French society.

If you are intrigued by the above quote, don't read this book. The reasons this lovely little novel was a best-seller in 1950s France are not terribly relevant today -- the shocking overt sexuality of its day seems rather tame compared to the blandest advertisements of today. Instead, read this novel because of its charming opening sentence: "A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sadness". However, don't expect much introspection. The protagonist, 17-yer old Cecile, lives a frivolous and dissolute lifestyle with her Don Juan father until the presence of Anne, a friend of the family, threatens their peaceful existence. Unfortunately, Sagan's writing is unable to transcend the frivolity she describes and this story remains all surface. Except for a few rare moments, Anne is nothing more than a cardboard cut-out and the relentless first-person narration of the enfant terrible somehow avoids depth of emotion. Nonetheless, it is a delightful novel, perfect for a quick summertime read!

Summertime? Where do you live :-)?! Can I move there? The Netherlands feel like autumn. Good weather to read by, though!

>14 Simone2: Well, it was 21 degrees Celsius and sunny when I read the book. And it should get warmer eventually.

502. Strait is the Gate by André Gide, orig. pub. 1909

Why it is included in the 1001 list: There is something irresistible, even seductively perfect about Strait is the Gate. Technically the story is about love.... It is the prolonged and seemingly pointless trajectory from youthful uncertainty and caution to considered postponement then denial, that fascinates. With exquisite control, Gide has created an exploration of love that manages to capture the absolute yet open-ended nature of yearning itself.

The bare-bones story has all the elements of a classic romance story -- two sisters fall in love with their cousin, who loves one of them in return and confides his feeling to the other. One sister sacrifices her love for the other's happiness, only to be outdone by her sister's greater sacrifice. And so on. But instead of the outward emotion and societal constraints that one would find in novel by the Brontës, Gide's characters are quietly intense and the prose is poetical. In this novel, the barriers are internal and the struggles are personal. At times, the aestheticism of the main characters made it a very difficult read -- their inner world was so foreign to me. It is a beautiful novel that should be read on a peaceful, contemplative day.

503. The Decay of the Angel by Yukio Mishima, orig. pub. 1970, vol. 4 of The Sea of Fertility

Why it is included in the 1001 list: The Sea of Fertility, which some consider to be the Japanese version of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, provides us with a fabulous insight into the life and experience of memory.

The tetralogy is narrated by Shigekuni Honda and spans 60+ years of his life. In the first volume, Honda is a law student who is an unwilling party to his friend's (Kiyoaki Matsugae) destructive love affair and eventual death. In each of the successive novels, set at approximately 20-year intervals, Honda becomes involved in the life of a young person he believes to be Matsugae's reincarnation.

I found The Decay of the Angel to be the most beautifully written volume of the tetralogy (perhaps due to the translation -- three different translators were used for the four volumes). The opening pages with excessive description of the sea were off-putting, but I soon settled into the flow of the language and enjoyed the imagery. Although I did not always grasp the motivations, I enjoyed the character of Tōru and was fascinated by Honda's conflicted relationship with him. The end was baffling, yet somehow fitting. Overall, The Sea of Fertility is a remarkable series and one I plan on re-reading in the future, hopefully after I gained better insight into Buddhism and Japanese culture.

504. Cat and Mouse by Günter Grass, orig. pub. 1961

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The story is written in the form of a confessional.... The novel shows the extraordinary technical abilities that Grass possesses by adeptly moving between comic fantasy, brutality, realism, and myth; between moments of lyrical beauty and horrific violence. It is also in constant dialogue with its own storytelling, the distorting power of memory, and the impossibility of reconciliation."

Although this is the second work in Grass' Danzig Trilogy, it can be read as a stand-alone work.
The story is a meandering meditation of the narrators childhood and his relationship to Joachim Mahlke. Mahlke is an unusual character, unlike any I have encountered in life. He is both an awkward, ungainly social misfit and a hero to his small cadre of boys -- he is able to equal or out-do the best boys in gym class, but "his form was miserable" and "so execrable were his {gymnastics} - his knees were bent and he was all tensed up - that none of us could bear to watch him". The plot, such as it is, follows Mahkle's exploits from a sickly weak child to a gawky, ludicrous teen (with a huge adams apple - the mouse of the title), to reluctant war-hero.

For a novella, the story is full of contradictions and complexities. The narrator clearly worships Mahlke, but describes him and his actions in the most ludicrous way possible, trying to show himself as more socially adept. Mahlke is also portrayed with complexity. His life ambition is to perform, to entertain, and yet the narrator describes him as someone who never showed off, never bragged, and tried to avoid the admiration he was earning. "Applause did him good and quieted the jumping mouse on his neck; applause also embarrassed him and started the selfsame mouse up again."

Both the timeline and the narrative voice are fluid. It is narrated in an associative manner rather than chronological and switches from third-person observation to second-person, sometimes within the same paragraph. The narrator hints at and dances around tragic outcome, offering glimpses before back-tracking into some seemingly irrelevant anecdote, so that by the time I reached the end of the story, I was no longer sure what the tragic event was or if it was indeed tragic. All in all, I found it to be a fascinating work.

505. The Guide by R. K. Narayan, orig. pub. 1958

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The Guide is one of the best loved of Narayan's works set in hid fictitious town of Malgudi. It's success is no doubt due to its humor in depicting the irresistible urge to spin a yarn, and keep it spinning."

The novel begins with a peasant gazing reverentially at Raju. Raju has recently been released from prison and having no ties to a particular place or person, has stopped to rest at a shrine. The man, mistaking Raju for a holy man, treats Raju accordingly and Raju "had experienced a feeling of importance. He felt like an actor who was always expected to utter the right sentence." Unwittingly, Raju falls into the role assigned him by Velan, the peasant man, and eventually the role becomes reality. Interspersed with Raju's present is the narrative Raju relates to Velan in an attempt to refute the role thrust upon him.

I thoroughly enjoyed the the present-tense storyline about Raju's transformation into a holy man. The author was able to show, not tell, the power of societal expectations to influence and even alter behavior. The dichotomy between Raju's thoughts and his actions subtly raised questions about the nature of faith. The novel ends somewhat abruptly, leaving the reader to choose what happens next and to decide if Raju is a holy man or not.

506. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, orig. pub. 1838

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Oliver Twist is at once a picturesque story, a melodrama, and a fairy tale romance in which the foundling is revealed to have noble origins. It is also one of the first novels to feature a child as the central character, though in contrast with Dickens's later children, Oliver both stays a prepubescent and remains untouched by the trauma he experiences."

I am not a Dickens fan. Typically, I find his style far to cumbersome and wordy and the coincidence-driven plots tend to make my eyes roll. Even worse, I read Oliver Twist not too long after reading Bleak House, arguably Dickens's best novel. While the style was everything I kew it would be (only worse), the storyline was not as familiar as I thought it would be. Oliver spends very little time in the streets of London and never attains the precocious cleverness of Orphan Annie or Gavroche; I had always pictured him as saucy street-urchin. If you can get past the unwieldy, badly constructed sentences and the cardboard characters, there are moments of stunning writing, such as the most grisly scene in the book which is as horrifying as Poe's best work.

507. Justine by Marquis de Sade, pub. 1791

508. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, orig. pub. 1938

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Brighton Rock began life as a detective novel.... However, the structure of the detective novel merely contains the moral framework seen here. The contrast between Pinkie's theological morality and it's insubstantial counterparts is reinforced using various narrative techniques. Principally the language through which Pinkie's contemplation of hell is expressed contrasts vividly with the comparatively frivolous considerations of Ida and other characters."

Brighton Rock is supposed to be an "entertainment", a crime novel (as opposed to Greene's literary works that he referred to as novels). But in this early work, already the boundaries Greene tried to maintain are blurred. Brighton Rock depicts the story of an up-and-coming mobster, Pinkie, and Ida, the amateur detective that is determined to bring him to justice for killing a man she was briefly acquainted with. Although the framework of the plot is supposed to be a detective novel, the author spends far too much time in Pinkie's thoughts. It's one thing to be in the mind of an evil killer and quite another to be in the head of an insecure, not-very-bright, 17-year old boy. While the writing at times was superb, the story felt banal.

509. Nowhere Man by Aleksandar Hemon, pub. 2002.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Hemon's work expands the limits of English and challenges the cultural authority of the standard forms of the language. Nowhere Man, Hemon's first novel, comprises six interrelated narratives, each with it's own narrative style.... The novel is most striking in those passages where Hemon forces the reader to contemplate the English language afresh by stretching the literal meaning of English words into contexts in which they are not usually applied."

For the most part, I enjoyed this book. The first section, told in first person by an unnamed narrator, describes the difficult life of an immigrant to America and introduces Joseph Pronek, the subject of subsequent sections. Each section begins with a page stating the time and place of the following narrative. They narratives are not in chronological order, each one leads to an event or a person that suggests the following narrative. One is written as a biography -- summarize Jozef's life from infancy to age 25, one is a letter written to Jozef by his best friend, one takes on the characteristics of a detective novel, one is a century-spanning and reminiscent of magical realism, and so on.

Overall, it is an inventive novel that through it's structure and themes questions the act of narration itself -- how do you tell an individual's story when you can never experience what s/he has experienced and never fully understand the meaning of the very words s/he uses?

510. Like Life by Lorrie Moore, pub. 1990.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} met with excellent reviews on its publication, and it is no secret that Moore crafts her stories like a gem cutter wields a chisel. In this collection of eight short stories, most of them take place in the Midwest.... These are characters who are fragile, hilarious, and heartbreaking in their familiarity. The title -- Like Life -- could hardly be more apt."

I am from the Midwest and older than Lorrie Moore was when this collection was published, but somehow, weirdly, these stories did not resonant. I felt as if I needed to be older or in a different place in my life to appreciate them. Perhaps too much has changed in the last twenty years. Perhaps too many of the characters were a little too eccentric. Perhaps I have lived in NYC too long.

My two favorite stories, "Vissi d'Arte" and "The Jewish Hunter", were set in NYC or had a protagonist that was a New Yorker on sabbatical in the Midwest respectively. I think Moore's writing is so simple and well-crafted that the stories are at their best when the reader identifies with the main character. I look forward to reading her A Gate at the Stairs.

Oh dear, I am so behind. Lots of vacation time spent reading, but I have woefully neglected the reviewing.

511. Home by Marilynne Robinson (post-2008)
512. Cost by Roxana Robinson (post-2008)
513. American Rust by Philipp Meyer (post-2008)
514. Summer by Edith Wharton (removed 2008)
515. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (post-2008)

516. Story of the Eye

517. The Stranger (The Outsider) by Albert Camus, pub. 1942

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} is a novel of absolute flatness. The events of the story...seem to have no weight to them whatsoever, as if they simply float past on the page. This is absolutely essential to both the story's purpose, its relationship with the philosophy o existentialism, and to its readability.... Dislocated from other as well as from his own life, Meursault's character demonstrates the meaningless of life beyond the meaning one is willing to ascribe to it. It is the realization of and resignation to this essential meaningless that for Camus constitutes the absurd."

This is an interesting book to read, after hearing so much about it in various contexts (enough so that I thought I HAD read it). It was completely different, and better, than I expected. I loved the spare writing style. The simplicity of language evoked some strong images. Even weeks and several books later, I can still picture the scene on the beach with the figures appearing in the heat-shimmered distance. Beautiful.

518. The Sea by John Banville, pub. 2005.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Banville's prose often seems to have something of the miraculous to it, and the miracle in this novel is its capacity to use words to produce vivid images.... {The novel's} greater concern is with the preservative power of memory and of art, to catch at something that does not die.... This novel is soaked in images and phrases drawn from works of art -- Bonnard, Whistler, and Vermeer; from Shakespeare, Proust, and Beckett."

This is a book I will have to re-read someday. I was not in a conducive frame of mind to settle into the quiet, contemplative mood of the novel. I'm sure the prose was beautiful, poetic, but it left me cold.

27 - that is exactly how I felt when I finished!

519. Dangling Man by Saul Bellow, pub. 1944

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "It prefigures Bellow's later writings in its juxtaposition of low life and high culture.... we see Bellow beginning to combine the concerns of European literature with authentically American urban experience."

This slim book takes the form of a journal being kept by Joseph. Joseph is a young married man living in Chicago in 1941 who has quit his job in expectation of being called up to serve in WWII. Due to a bureaucratic error (I was never clear on what the problem is), he is left dangling, in limbo, as he waits for his status to be sorted. The journal begins after he has already spent seven months anticipating an immediate deployment.

For a slim volume, the novel has quite a bit of depth as Joseph chronicles the existential effects of waiting on his personhood. He sees his current self as a shadow of the before Joseph, the Joseph that was capable of doing and existing in the world. The writing is exquisite in places and tedious in others. I very much look forward to reading his later novels.

520. Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee, pub. 1980

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "...{It} is a more general meditation on the act of writing and on the potential failures of writing to communicate meaning. Here the 'barbarians' seem to represent a testimony of suffering that cannot be articulated."

This is the only Coetzee book I have enjoyed. It is the first one where the writing style did not bore me and/or the characters did not seem too caricatured. Strangely, I did not pick up on the themes mentioned in the blurb quoted above. Instead I focused more on the contrasted ways the unnamed narrator and Colonel Joll treat the indigenous people and the not-so-subtle identification of the real barbarians.

521. Willard and his Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan, pub. 1975

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "A novel about the arbitrary devastation wrought by fate, about the disintegration of meaning and purpose in 1970s America, {the book} is made hypnotic by Brautigan's unique style. His short, expository, sterile sentences...act like a rhythmic metronome, leaving the reader breathless, mesmerized. And laughing"

The subtitle "a perverse mystery" is (hopefully) ironic. If one summarized a traditional mystery story in three sentences that is the extent of this novel being a mystery. And the perverse storyline is far less perverse than the most mild of main stream colorless (ahem, grey) erotica.

Retrospectively, I understand what the blurb is saying. I did find the novel mesmerizing, but more in a perplexed 'what the heck...?!' kind of way. I may be too literal to enjoy this odd little book. I got stuck on an unexplained plot point and just couldn't go with the flow.

522. Cain by José Saramago (added in the 2012 edition)

523. Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family
524. The French Lieutenant's Woman
525. On The Black Hill
526. Remembering Babylon

527. Fortunata and Jacinta by Benito Perez Galdoz (removed 2008)

528. The Virgin in the Garden

529. Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon, pub. 2006

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "It exhibits all the hallmarks of Pynchon's earlier writing--the ethical commitment to {the poor}, the fascination with strange cosmologies, fragile folk cultures, and outlaw(ed) traditions; the scorn for corporate skulduggery; the knotted relationship between 'historical' time and 'narrative' time; the loopy fondness for talking animals and obscene songs. There are also, however, new developments, particularly Pynchon's evocation of fin de siecle anarchism and violence--a reckoning with the moral vortex of the blast radius that resonates deeply with our current situation.

This month-long read was a crazy, seemingly endless journey. It is definitely unlike anything else I've read, combining story lines from many different genres into one ginormous novel. Unlike Ulysses, Pynchon doesn't attempt to impress with his powers of stylistic mimicry, but rather plays with meshing many different styles together. There is the late 19th Century adventure dime novel plot of the Chums of Chance and the Western revenge plot of the Traverse family. Then the book segues into early 20th Century science fiction with Kit Traverse and various Quaternion theorists which quickly melds into a spy thriller centered around Yashmeen Halfcourt, Cyprian Latewood, and others.

The first 600 pages or so are thrilling. Although not quite quotable, Pynchon's language evokes vivid imagery and there is definitely some cleverness and humor (although it wasn't my type of humor, I could tell that there were many bon mots meant to amuse. For example the cameo appearance of Al Mar-Faud, with guess what type of speech impediment). But after a while, it began to be exhausting. Many characters, in 1085 pages, were never developed; I couldn't keep Reef & Frank Traverse straight. So, without strong characters to hold onto and with a structure that intentionally perverts the traditional, expected story arc, I just kind of wanted it to be over. And then, weirdly enough, I wanted to read it again -- this time an annotated edition explaining all the aspects that were over my head.

530. Howards End by E. M. Forster, pub. 1910

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Truly a masterpiece.... the characters are brilliantly drawn, and the dialogue is realistic and moving. Although this novel deals with extreme emotions and actions, it never becomes melodramatic or absurd."

I listened to this as an audiobook over the course of several weeks. Forster's writing is simple and elegant and wonderfully easy to follow in audio. I did love the characterization -- the dotty Aunt Julie, the impulsive idealism of Helen, the mundane competence of Mr. Wilcox. I'm not so sure about the lack of absurdity, the convoluted interactions of the characters definitely tended towards ludicrousness.

531. Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert, pub. 1869

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} is surely one of the greatest novels yet written, possibly even the greatest triumph in literary realism ever accomplished.... The novel is at once gigantic in its historical perception, and minutely attentive to the slow suffocation of emotional and political idealism in a single heart.

In a way, I agree with the above assessment. But I would argue it's possible for a novel to be too perfect. Sentimental Education is so well written -- the world is robustly depicted and the characters are never out of character -- that it left me cold. The prose was so smooth, that it left nothing to hold onto. The slow decline of Frederic's idealism is so well done that I hadn't realized it had happened.

532. Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz, pub. 1947

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Egypt's most famous novelist and winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature, Mahfouz...is best known to Western readers for his realist portrayals of life in 20th Century Cairo, early works whose narrative style and characterization recall...Dickens, Balzac, and Zola."

Set in the Cairo of the mid-1940's, this novel through a series of vignettes depicts the lives of several individuals living in one of the city's alleys. With so many narrators, most are not fully developed into three dimensional people; instead each seems a caricature. However, through the variety of the caricatures and the many episodes, Mahfouz is able to create his portrait of the whole of Egyptian society and the forces beliefs, and habits that seem to thwart any hope of betterment of the characters or their place in society. I found it to alternate between a horrifying and charming world.

533. The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa, pub. 2000.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Vargas Llosa once cliamed that in writing about this particular dictator he was effectively writing about all dictators, wherever they are found, and about the essential nature of the power they yield. But his meticulous research on the streets of the republic, interviewing real people for this novel makes it a tense, unnerving and uncomfortably direct read."

I find Mario Vargas Llosa's writing inconsistent; some books I love, some I don't remember a day after putting them down. This is one of the better ones. Set in the last few days of May 1961, it vividly depicts the end of Rafael Trujillo's brutal regime, through the eyes of a dozen narrators and several major story lines. The book is framed by Urania Cabral, the daughter of one of Trujillo's collaborators that escaped the island as a young woman and has returned 35 years later to confront her past. The second storyline is that of men conspiring against Trujillo; each of them recounts their life under the brutal regime and the event(s) that lead them to plan Trujillo's assassination. The third story line is that of Trujillo himself. Finally, the last portion of the book is narrated by various individuals in Trujillo's circle and the terrifying transition to a new government (Note: this book is not for the squeamish or faint-of-heart).

Overall, I found the multi-perspective structure fascinating. The different narrators were able to provide details of both the banality and the horrible confoundedness of life in a dictatorship. Unfortunately, Trujillo's perspective was the weakest component. To me, showing the boring-ness of his daily life undermined the tension created in the other plots. However, the interweaving of the rest of the story lines was used quite well to build momentum. As each of the story lines approaches the climatic events, we know what will happen, but it is only slowly revealed why.

534. Against Nature (aka Against the Grain) by Joris-Karl Huysmans, pub. 1884

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} is a sensuous joy of a novel. It guts the aesthetic, spiritual, and physical desires of the late 19th century high bourgeoisie and feasts on the remains.... The result is a lush, stylized study in intensity, a fascinating portrayal of an age through the eyes of one who abandoned it."

The novel has a promising beginning - a couple of short chapters summarizing the narrators societal debaucheries and excesses that have lead him to despair and the decision to abandon society. He then goes on to ponder the superiority of the artificial over Nature, culminating in a gorgeous metaphor:
"Is there a woman, whose form is more dazzling, more splendid than the two locomotives that pass over the Northern Railroad lines? One the Crampton, is an adorable, shrill-voiced blonde, a trim gilded blond, with a large, fragile body imprisoned in a glittering corset of copper, and having the long sinewy lines of a cat. Her extraordinary grace is frightening, as, with the sweat of her hot sides rising upwards and her steel muscles stiffening, she puts in motion the immense rose-window of her fine wheels and darts forward....

There was also a description of the "new generation" that made me laugh, they "seemed to find it necessary to talk and laugh boisterously in restaurants and cafes. They jostled you on sidewalks without begging pardon. They pushed the wheels of perambulators against your legs without even apologizing." It sound just like my reaction to present day Park Slope, Brooklyn!

However, the novel is completely plot-less. Each subsequent chapter wallows in the description of a particular sensation - a chapter on color as the narrator decorates his new abode. A chapter on taste as he imaginatively mixes cocktails (each liquor is defined as a musical instrument and he orchestrates their flavors). There is a chapter on scent as the narrator mixes perfumes, a chapter on his youthful religious studies, a chapter on his current library. And on and on and on.

It is extremely well-written, but the aspects that interested me the most were in the early chapters. And while I enjoy creative metaphors and beautiful descriptions, after a while it gets tedious.

535. Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, pub. 1942

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Chess Story is a small, powerful text, confidently staging large themes, including Gestapo torture, the nature of obsession, the foolishness of hubris and greed, and political manipulation."

As quoted above, this novella incorporates huge ideas in a short, multi-storied structure. The unnamed narrator frames the piece. He sets the stage for the conflict depicted as well as serving as the receptacle of the back stories of the two competitors. The author aptly plays out the events as relentlessly and logically as the moves in a chess game. The two competitors are portrayed as having similar backgrounds (the same shapes) but opposing characteristics, as stark as the black and white pieces on the board between them. Thankfully, Zweig refrains from assigning colors to the two players thus avoiding an obvious "white hat" "black hat" interpretation of the events. All in all, I found Chess Story to be a truly masterful piece of writing.

536. To Each His Own by Leonardo Sciascia, pub. 1966

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "A detective story that seeks to understand the psychological grip and far-reaching influences of the never mentioned but always implied Cosa Nostra, To Each His Own is also a poinant critique of a society steeped in a tradion of silence and fueled by lies, complicity, and bloodshed."

This lovely NYRB edition should have been a quick read, a short mystery story. But as a detective novel, it fails. The narrator is an amateur detective and has no real stake in solving the mystery. There is no suspense or pacing -- I think at several points there were weeks/months that go by with no progress and worse, no interest in the mystery. There never seems to be any personal danger for the narrator; for him it is more of an intellectual distraction, something to muse over occasionally. However, the novel is a wonderful commentary on the small community it depicts and I quite enjoyed the minor twist at the end.

537. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll, pub. 1974

Why it is included in the 1001 list: On the surface, the novel appears to be a morality tale with a simple lesson about the evil of the unscrupulous sensationalism of the mass media.... Böll's text...contains an awareness of the power and the dangers of language, as well as a warning about the violence that even supposedly objective words can do if respect for facts is not accompanied by respect for people."

This novel is actually better known for the movie of the same name, and after reading it, I understand why. It's an interesting premise - a young, perhaps naive, woman is investigated by the police and persecuted by the press due to a her newly acquired relationship with a criminal. But what could have been a fascinating story is told through a disassociated, dispassionate narrative. It is written as if presenting an objective, factual reconstruction of events based purely on police/court reports and interviews of key witnesses. I found it rather dry.

538. The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna, pub. 1975

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Paasilinna uses his burlesque sense of humor to navigate through delicate subjets such as death, mental illness, suicide, unemployment, rebellion, and alcoholism, yet never descending into banality."

A light, quick read that, while not exactly banal, does get tedious. At the very end of the book, in the guise of a bureaucratic report, the episodes of the book are summarized in a numbered list of 21 crimes the protagonist committed. For me, this list highlighted the sit-com structure of the book -- lots of incidents with happy resolutions that feel repetitive and while there is change, the overall story arc is not so strong.

539. The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman by Andrzej Szczypiorski, pub. 1986

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Andrzej Szczypiorski investigates the conundrum of human belonging: who decides who we become?... Perhaps, Szczypiorski warns in this moving and thought provoking novel, the mask of violence is the only immutable human identity."

I found The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman to be an exquisite collage of lives live in WWII and post-war Poland. It's written more as an interlinked set of stories, with the titled Mrs. Seidenman only appearing in a few of them. Some characters flit in and out of others lives like a benevolent whac-a-mole, while others make only a brief appearance and then are gone. What is fascinating is the use of time, it telescopes in each vignette, providing both a realistic present tense event as well as a glimpse of the character's future and eventual end. When it worked, it was brilliant!

540. Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd, pub. 1985

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "History, rather than being represented as purely linear, is shown here to have a distinctly spatial aspect. Time and history are drawn together in the voices of the two characters; each chapter united by a repetition of the closing words in the previous chapter. Indeed, the novel turns upon the notion of repetition, which in turn leads to one of the most spectacular and peculiar endings to any novel."

I didn't get this novel at all. Reading it was painstakingly tortuous. I hated the Victorian chapters with their "period" random capitalization and inconsistent, non-standardized spellings. I didn't notice the repetition of words from the end of one chapter to the next, since I could barely manage to read ten pages at a sitting. It seemed to be deviously obtuse -- not obtuse in a deliberate way as in Faulkner or Joyce, but written as if straight-forward and yet not making sense. I have no idea what the "spectacular and peculiar" ending is. All I remember of the ending is "huh?" and relief that it was over. The one thing that Hawksmoor does remarkably well, is atmosphere. Although I found it difficult to make sense of the whole, the individual moments (when comprehensible) were engrossing.

541. The Gathering by Anne Enright (added in the 2010 edition).

542. The Judge and His Hangman by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, pub. 1952

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "in this atmospheric novel...words pint foreboding and thrilling backdrops to the tale of Police Commissioner Barlach.... Critiquing policing methods is bound up inextricably both with the plot and an equally important study of human imperfection. It is this last aspect, in particular, that truly distinguishes this piece of crime fiction."

I had not realized this was a mystery novel, and made the erroneous assumption that it was going to be a more difficult novel because it was hard to find a copy. Instead it ended up being a fun read! Written in the third person objective voice, the reader is only shown the characters' actions, not their thoughts, so it starts out slowly as Dürrenmatt lays the groundwork. Hw is careful to only shw actions that are ambiguous until a critical mass of detail is reached and suddenly you realize how brilliantly he set you up.

543. The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier, pub. 1953

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Carpentier here tells the story of a contemporary pilgrimage in search of the origins of civilization and of personal identity.... In the final image...he manages to express the predicament of the modern artist, lost between two irreconcilable worlds."

At the start of the novel, the narrator is leading an unfulfilling life in a modern city. Over the years he has fallen away from his passions and has settled for the mundanity of commercial work and the weekly visits to his wife. He accidentally bumps into a former acquaintance who offers him a job to travel to the remotest jungles in search of primitive musical instruments. At the behest of his lover, he reluctantly agrees. Th further he travels from civilization, the more he remembers his childhood and the more he becomes his true self. This is humorously contrasted with the reaction of his lover who is much less able to adapt to "uncivilized" life.

The book is written in a dreamy style, full of lush description that becomes more and more apt as the narrator travels into the jungle. I found it to be a more deeper and more compelling story of "living the simple life" than The Year of the Hare.

544. Claudine's House by Colette, pub. 1922

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "In this semi-autobiographic tale, Colette reminisces on her rural upbringing as a child with her wise and wondrous mother and Mother Nature. It is a beautiful observation of a girl on the cusp of innocence and knowingness set in a magical woodscape."

This book is delightful! The simple elegant prose was perfect after the dense sinuous prose of Carpentier. Colette immediately draws you in with the first chapter titled "where are the children?" which describes some of the oddities of her siblings and her self as well as the other-worldliness of her mother. I loved the mention of the book left open on the lawn that was included in her opening description of the house. It is a charming novelized memior that jumps around a little bit chronolocially, but unfortunately seems to lose steam once the narrator leaves the house of the title.

I *loved* Claudine's house when I read it a couple of years ago. Such sensuous writing!

>48 paruline: Yes, I was quite charmed! I have a lovely edition published by Hesperus Press. But I must admit, there was a section near the end that was sketches of her various pets that I found annoying, so it lost 1/2 a star for that.

545. The Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet, pub. 1923

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "It is elegant and compact, often presenting psychological insight into the workings of ill-fated love in the form of short maxims. The novel is also an indictment of the petit-bourgeois morals that left generations of young men and women tragically unprepared for the logic of both love and war."

I must admit that I had trouble finding any "psychological insight" in this novel. It opens with the narrator telling us he turned twelve when the war began and he then refers to WWI as a "four-year holiday". With such a momentous backdrop, I was expecting the story to have more gravity, more weight. Instead, I was thrust into the totally self-absorbed, selfish world of a 16-year-old boy's affair with a married woman. And I cannot emphasize enough how egocentric the narrator is -- none of the other characters are memorable or "real", not even his love object. I suppose this was the whole point of the novel -- reflecting France's post-war hedonism, but it doesn't make it any more enjoyable.

546. The Vice-Consul by Marguerite Duras, pub. 1966.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Duras' minimalist style handles issues of love, sexual desire, jealousy, motherhood, hunger, violence, waiting, boredom, with beautiful and exceptional subtlety.... One of the most fascinating aspects of this novel is the texture and layering of it's narrative voice. The novel's structure places the reader in a disturbing position, inspiring consideration of questions such as 'who is writing?' and 'Whose story are we reading?' "

It is a difficult novel to discuss. The story is told through description and I am left mostly with visual impressions and mood, as of a dream-images which are quickly fading. Duras tantalizes the reader with many hints and allusions to a scandalous crime committed by the Vice-Consul, never fully describing the event and certainly never explaining it. The novel defies conventions and even gently ridicules it's meta-ness -- by exhibiting the "author" writing one of the stories we are reading as a buffoon and creating doubt that he could write such an exquisite story. This is a novel that I will need to re-read to fully appreciate.

547. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, pub. 1850.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "A complex exploration of psychological development...it succeeds in combining elements of fairy tale with the open-ended form of the Bildungsroman.... The narrative evokes the act of recollection while investigating the nature of memory itself."

I finished this a week ago or so. At this point, I do vaguely remember that the narrator commented on memory and the act of (re)writing one's life, but what I remember most from the novel is the characters. I loved his aunt Betsey Trotwood and his nurse and friend Peggotty -- the least irritating of Dickens' female characters that I can remember. It is written as a memoir -- the narrator having established himself as a novelist and looking back on his life. As with most Dickens novels there is a fair bit of meandering, an astounding number of coincidental meetings between characters, and quite a few eye-rolling moments at their naïveté. But it is thoroughly enjoyable, if not quite as brilliant and well-plotted as Bleak House.

Eliz_M!!

I look forward to chatting with you lots between here and our 2014 Challenges.

I bow down to you--547?! Holy MOLY!!!

>53 punkypower: ~blush~ thank you. I have been a wee but obsessed with this list since I found it in October 2007 and most of the books I read are from it. So, ~70 books a year for six years = a lot! :)

70 books a year!? That is awe-inspiring. I find it hard to manage 30 books a year.

548. Transit by Anna Seghers, pub. 1944.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: Transit, one of the greatest treatments of flight and exile in modern German writing, is a powerful blend of documentary with fiction."

One synopsis described this novel as a "literary thriller", which raised false expectations. Personally, I believe the book is far to Kafkaesque to be a thriller. The story begins with the unnamed narrator's telling the story of his escape from a German camp and subsequent flight to Marseille, where he expects to receive help and a job from an ex-girlfriend's family. Marseille is a place of limbo -- flooded with foreigners attempting to escape the Nazi advance. However, both leaving and staying requires various permits, letters, and visas and the narrator, at first a passive observer to the bureaucratic finagling, is drawn in by the desire to possess a beautiful woman. The framework is that of a thriller -- the narrator has the possession of papers identifying him as a dissident writer (whom he knows is dead), but the story seems focused on the absurdities of the processes and the endless, irrational waiting. For observant readers, the opening scene reveals details of the ending (which I completely missed).

549. Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz, pub. 1937.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The dark, repressed, and often damaged areas of the human psyche that exist in the boundary between 'maturity' and 'immaturity' are explored in a narrative of great power, wit, and philosophical sophistication.... Gombrowicz is now recognized as one of the greatest Polish authors of the twentieth century."

I specifically read this book due to an impromptu work trip to Warsaw -- choosing a book published before horrors of WWII that is also considered a foundation of modern Polish literature. But the timing was not good. The book is too smart and too satirical to be enjoyable on an eight-hour red-eye flight for someone with no familiarity with Polish history. This absurd story is narrated by an aspiring author who is forced back into childhood by a former teacher - thrust into school and a home-stay and treated by all involved as if he was the child the former teacher claims him to be. At the best of times, I usually "don't get" satire and, unfortunately, for this experience I was too exhausted to make any sense of the novel.

550. The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge, pub. 1949.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: Because of "its determination to pay respect to the multiplicity of ordinary life.... There is a dense historical undercurrent..., reaching back beyond Stalinism to incorporate, through memory, anecdote, and association, multiple varieties of Russian life."

The novel is set amidst the purges of 1930s Stalinist Russia and in order to fully embody truth, the protagonist is the time itself. The political situation of the times is shown through a series of interconnected short stories of individuals all affected by the murder of the government official, Tulayev. Read over a period of several weeks and due to the structure of the book, I had problems with continuity. I found the opening chapter to be completely engaging and was somewhat disappointed when it became clear the individuals in the first story were not going to reappear anytime soon. And so the book goes, some chapters are personal with well-rounded characters that I could read an entire novel about and some chapters feature colorless bureaucrats enmeshed in an almost unfathomable (to me) political process. Overall, it it presents a complex, fascinating look at a dark period in Russia's history.

551. Anagrams by Lorrie Moore, pub. 1986.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} displays all the brilliance of her early stories.... It opens with a mischievous literary anagram. We are given successive versions of the first chapter.... Details fluctuate and merge until Moore comes up with the right one.

Moore is a brilliant, gifted writer which sometimes makes reading her work so difficult. Her clean, clear prose perfectly captures a grey mundane existence that exemplifies Friedan's "problem that has no name" for the 1980s. In Anagrams, Moore depicts the malaise pervading the life of Benna. Benna is a mid-thirties professor at a third-rate community college in rural upstate NY (but could also be in the heartland), who is just making it by with a few close friends and minimal contact with her family. I did not find much hope in this novel and the mood was quite at odds with the holiday season. The 1001 summary says it best "there are no evils here, only the careless indignities of everyday life; simple pathos, more of a shrug than a scream."

But, aside from the brilliant writing, what makes this novel so fascinating is the structure -- Benna's life is anagrammed. This technique encourages the reader to contemplate what is real and what other possible outcomes there could be.

552. Thomas of Reading by Thomas Deloney, pub. 1600.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "On the surface an innocent collection of anecdotes, Thomas of Reading is also an astute social critique. It celebrates the clothiers but disprages their social superiors.... {It} is hard to categorize because it lacks generic unity and does not focus on a central event or figure. But it is precisely the narrative's deviation from familiar literary patterns that makes it appear refreshingly new today."

This should have been a "quickie". It is a short book containing 15 anecdotes that all loosely involve one of six clothiers. Unfortunately, this was an example of the importance of editions -- the ebook edition was SO bad. It was a scan/character recognized file of book that was published with ye olde characters, and some sentences were unreadable and others took far to long to parse. For example, "It came to paffe, that the {character}, whofe Father was lately banifhed being driven into great DiftrefTe, and weary with Trauell, as one whofe delicate Life was neuer vfed to fuch Toyle, fate her downe vpon the High-way Side..." Once I found a more readable paper edition it helped a lot (although the old-style language and spelling still requires parsing). The stories are enjoyable & the book has it all - comedy, drinking, adultery, doomed love, murder, etc.

553. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, pub. 1971

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Fear and Loathing is experienced through doors of perception, which are set so fantastically awry that no one can be said to know for sure what just happened, what is happening, and what might happen. The book provides an invigorating and hilarious demolition job on the ultimate post-modern city..."

This is a book that is hard to classify -- some libraries have it in nonfiction - journalism, some in biography, and some in fiction. The book describes a couple of drug-crazed trips Thompson took in Vegas while supposedly on assignment for Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone. Given some of the incidents hinted at (the narrative being too disconnected to actually describe most events), I hope the book is fiction. Overall, I found this to be a wonderful train-wreck of a book -- you're appalled, but you can't look away. The excess portrayed here by Thompson is so... excessive that instead of being horrifying, it becomes humorous.

554. Chaka by Thomas Mofolo, pub. 1925.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Mofolo, blending historical truth with romance, creates a fascinating novel that sheds light on pre-colonial Africa."

At times difficult to read, at others oddly compelling. The novel tells the story of a legendary Zulu leader who with brutality and genius subdued the nearby peoples and created the nation of Zulu. In many ways, the novel reads like non-fiction (actually it reads like wikipedia) -- events and actions are noted, but until the last chapter there is little attempt at portraying Chaka's interior, not even by describing his facial expressions or actions that would lead the reader to infer his mental state. There is also little to no description of the land. It is only the sorcery and the use of witchcraft that reminds the reader this is a work of fiction.

555. The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, pub. 1977.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Lispector's peculiar abilities to evoke the inner lives of of oppressed, uneducated, and inarticulate women are triumphantly displayed here.... Lispector's tremulous narrative evokes a game of life and death, in which it is the author's scared duty to redeem her characters from oblivion.... {She} dedicated this book to a series of composers, clearly aware that her work is as untranslatable as beautiful music."

This is a slim, odd, difficult book, and is quite possibly the most brilliant thing I have read in a while. It's hard to tell. Ostensibly a story about a poor, uneducated girl from the northeast of Brazil and her austere life in Rio de Janeiro, it is framed by a narrator, Rodrigo, who is the author of the story.

So it is also a novel about the act of creation, as the first half mostly focuses on the narrators perplexities of how to write the story. One favorite quandary: "I'm tempted to use succulent terms: I know splendid adjectives, meaty nouns, and verbs so slender that they travel sharp through the air about to go into action...." When the narrator finally is allowed to step back and the story of the young girl flows through him, it is a stunning portrait of a simple, poor girl who is not aware enough of life to think herself unhappy.

And if these two layered and intertwined stories aren't enough, the language and syntax is also self-aware, deliberately halting and interrupting the movement of the story. In the translator's note, it was said

"The foreigner with a basic knowledge of Romance grammar and vocabulary can read The Hour of the Star with ease. The Brazilian, however, often finds her extremely difficult. This is because her subtle rearrangements of everyday language are so surprising that they often baffle the reader."

The translation must be true to the original, as I was also baffled and frustrated at times. However, I found the simple and dissonant beauty of the writing to be irresistible.

556. None but the Brave (aka Lieutenant Gustl) by Arthur Schnitzler, pub. 1901.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "What assures its lasting fame is its innovative structure and language. Written entirely in the form of an interior monologue, the text borrows its technique from Freud's early psychoanalytical studies on mental associations."

Another very short novella. A fascinating use of interior monologue, almost a precursor of stream of consciousness. Gustl is rather impatient and short-tempered after suffering through an evening concert. He exchanges impolite words during the post-concert crowd and receives an insult to his honor. An insult that can only be assuaged by death -- either kill the insulter or commit suicide. The reader listens to Gustl thoughts through it all and through the sleepless night as he worries over the impending crisis and through it's conclusion in the early hours of the next day. Schnitzler touches upon large themes and questions as well as the inconsequential minutia that comprise consciousness in a charmingly realistic manner.

> 61 "...invigorating and hilarious demolition job on the ultimate post-modern city..." That does sum it up!

558. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter by Anonymous, pub. around 900.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The Tale of Genji (written about 1010) referred to it as the "ancestor of all romances." It is also the oldest surviving Japanese work of fiction.

This book is lovely! It contains a modern Japanese rewriting by Yasunari Kawabata, gorgeous illustrations by Masayuki Miyata, and a translation by Donald Keene. It is an old, old story that may have been written as satire, but now reads like a fairy tale.

The Old Bamboo Cutter finds a tiny girl in a stalk of Bamboo and brings her home to his wife. The tiny girl grows into a beautiful young woman and all the young men seek out her home, hoping for a glimpse of her. The Bamboo Cutter, now very old, urges her to marry. To appease him, she agrees -- but only to the man that successfully completes an impossible task.... I loved the endings to each of the tales of the five suitors.

559. The Reveries of a Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, pub. 1782.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: The novel's lasting appeal stems from the compelling tension between his sober, meditative philosophizing and his impassioned rage against the ills of society.... The combination of his circumstances and his inner turmoil make him one of the first modern examples of the literary outsider. It is therefore a vital precursor to the great works of isolation and despair by writers such as Dostoevsky, Beckett, and Salinger.

I don't really have much to say about this book. I found it I mostly uncompelling and I don't remember much of what I read. What is fascinating about reading Rousseau is that he was a little bit nuts, so reading his autobiographical writings, I am always wondering how much of the portrayal of events is his paranoia/persecution complex and how much is an accurate portrayal of the very real campaign against him and his writings.

560. Death Sentence by Maurice Blanchot, pub. 1948.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Blanchot exerted a profound influence on 20th century French thought.... The original French title can be translated as both 'death sentence' and 'stay of execution' -- both a final, definitive judgement and an indefinite reprieve.... As the narrator struggles to recount the events he relates, he senses that words always double back, consuming himself and the truth he is attempting to convey."

It is written in two sections. In the first, the narrator details his interactions with J., a dying young woman. The second part takes place during the bombing of Paris during WWII. The first part is much more lucid with something that resembles a story. The second part is not -- reading summaries/reviews it apparently revolves around three women, but I only remember one.

Part of my frustration is that early on Blanchot teases the reader with hints of what is to come: "{This story} could actually be told in ten words. That is what makes it so awful. There are ten words to say." A few pages later, he describes a mysterious attack a woman has after she attempts to open a closest door where the narrator kept "proof of these events". As the narrator continued to drop hints about the awful events, I found myself reading faster and faster to discover what happened. However, the narrator is never able to say those ten words or describe "the events". I believe this is the authors intention - to meditate on the impossibility of language and words to convey one's experiences. However, I needed a few more markers, a few more bread crumbs to help me follow his tortuous intent.

It is a book that would have been greatly helped by an introduction or a translators note -- something that frames the book and sets realistic expectations. I think if I reread it, I will enjoy it tremendously.

561. The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind, pub. 1987.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "This short, tightly written novella is pervaded by a dark intensity.... Powerful for its potential universality, this short tale is also a persuasive examination of how an apparently trivial, if unusual, occurrence can force the self into new perspectives."

After Death Sentence, The Pigeon was refreshingly straight-forward. Set in Paris, it depicts the shattering of a man's world. Jonathan Noel is an ordinary, 50+ bank guard. After a childhood marred by WWII and the loss of his parents, followed by military service and a failed marriage in his early adulthood , Jonathan "came to the conclusion that you cannot depend on people, and that you can live in peace only if you keep them at arms length". So for the next thirty years, he lives a self-contained life in a tiny room in a boarding house, works as a bank security guard, and has an unvarying daily routine. Until one day what should have been an insignificant event, a small deviation in his rigid existence, decomposes his inner world.

I should read this because many times I've been tempted to spoend the next 30 years living a self-contained life in a tiny room in a boarding house, working as a bank security guard with an unvarying daily routine.

#70 - Yes, John, I can really see you in a tiny room. ah hem. Not. Just think how boring your pictures of "where I read this book" would be. But you'd never have to eat bad airline food again.

>70 arukiyomi: somehow, I don't think this book will speak to you.

Ooops! I forgot to post for one of my books.

557. Memoirs of a Peasant Boy by Xosé Neira Vilas, pub. 1961

This charming novella purports to be the journal of a poor boy from a rural community in Galicia, Spain. The perspective is that of the young man looking back on his lonely childhood in a small village from his current position as a servant in a larger town. Because no one understands him, he empties his thoughts and feelings into a notebook. The narration is that of a simple, straightforward portrayal of his life, but in the telling of a fight with the landowner’s son, the enforced mourning for an uncle, and discussions with “the Jew”, the narrator questions and criticizes the social norms. The book is structured so that each chapter/memory is almost a self-contained story but together they encompass the hardships and comforts of life in 1930s Spain.

562. The Dark Child by Camara Laye, pub. 1953

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The book was an early example of francophone African literature, recording for the first time aspects of local daily tribal life, including circumcision ceremonies and details of the goldsmithing trade.

This was a delightful read. It is a memoir of the author's childhood in Guinea, written while he was attending school in France. As such, it is an idealistic memoir and casts a golden glow over his childhood. His parents are wonderful, his childhood was easy and mostly untroubled. Even when describing the vicious bullying he experienced at one of his childhood schools, the events seem glossed over. It was fascinating to read about a foreign life and culture as imagined by ne who both experienced it and was distanced from it.

563. Monica by Saunders Lewis, pub. 1930

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Lewis's novel has been considered one of the earliest existential novels--even the first.... The novel was accused of immorality for its openness about sex, prostitutes, and venereal disease, and because of the author's apparent objectivity. But to the modern reader, the novel seems explicitly moral..."

It may have been the author's objectivity that made this novel seem somewhat flat to me. Or perhaps because the author had an agenda other than just writing a story. Monica was written in Welsh as a part of the author's drive to help foster in an era of new Welsh literature. Nonetheless, it does have some interest.

At the first the novel begins with a framing device -- Monica finds a pretext to stay at a neighbor's house and in conversation, starts to tell her history to the young bed-ridden neighbor. But Lewis does something unusual--rather than just using it as an excuse for the story, he intersperses Monica's memories of what happened with the story she tells the neighbor, thus exposing a double image of the past and showing the reader both what Monica is and what she believes herself to be. And then the evening is over and Monica returns home, her story continues in real-time, and the neighbor is not mentioned again. Unfortunately, even with such an intriguing structure, I never felt that I knew Monica as a real person and didn't have enough sympathy for her.

564. In the Heart of the Seas by Shmuel Yosef Agnon, pub. 1948

Why it is included in the 1001 list: It established Agnon as one of the most important authors of modern Hebrew literature.... It is...a weaving together of traditional Judaism, the language of the Scriptures and the rabbinical texts, and influences of German literature into a modern, intricate, and unique language that is distinct Agnon's own.

This little novel was completely foreign to me. It tells the story of a group of Jewish people and their decision to journey to Israel. They encounter obstacles, hardships, and every-day miracles and through it all their faith and their religious stories sustain them. The language is deceptively simple, but the author uses the patterns of speech found in sermons -- repeated refrains, call and answer, and so on. It reads like a parable, but one steeped in a history, religion, and culture of which I am ignorant. The book deserves more stars, but while I recognize the beauty of the writing, I didn't particularly enjoy reading it.

565. Rituals by Cees Nooteboom, pub. 1980.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: The novel conjures an impressionistic literary landscape, where people and events mirror each other but are never fully explained.... Nooteboom...explores how different generations face similar crisis of intellectual faith.... Much of the language, too, is crisply and poetically precise, whether conveying existential doubt or paying homage to Amsterdam's engrossing cityscape.

The story of Rituals is told by Inni Wintrop, a man with enough money to float through life dabble in a handful of ad hoc professions. Through family and work he first encounters Arnold Taads, a former champion skier, deeply unhappy, who has regimented every minute of every day in order to avoid living in them. Many years later Inni meets Philip Taads, the son Arnold never acknowledged. Philip leads an austere timeless existence attempting to efface himself in meditation and the purity of tea ceremony.

Although the plot may seem, well, rather plot-less, I found the book to be completely enthralling. The language is exquisite and the thoughts on the nature of existence were mostly handled with a light touch -- not overly academic or preachy, but blended into the narrator's thought without becoming a 20-page treatise. I cannot begin to explain how mesmerizing I found this novella.

566. God's Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembène, pub. 1960.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: Ousmane consistently sought to portray the social changes facing Senegalese communities on the cusp of and beyond decolonization.... It is one of the earliest and most impressive novels to affirm the place of Africans in determining their own fate, challenging assumptions about their reliance on European leadership, or on self-serving individuals within their own ranks."

This engaging novel is set primarily in Senegal and depicts the events surrounding the 1947 railroad strike. There is Ad'jibid'ji, a young girl that is fascinated by the meetings of the railroad workers and tells her grandfather that she has "to start learning what it means to be a man" because "men and women will be equal one day" and her grandmother Niakoro, steeped in the old ways, who believes "knowledge should not belong to children, but to their elders." There is the enigmatic Bakayoko, the leader of the strike whom does not make an appearance until more than halfway through the book and his local strike leaders in Theis, Dakar, and Bamako. There are chapters narrated by obedient wives, market women, and prostitutes. There are stories told by the very old that remember the brutality and hardships of the strike many years ago and the young apprentices that fearlessly and unintentionally find ways to frighten the white bosses. There are the stories of the the white bosses, their wives and a failed anthropologist. All of these viewpoints create a all-encompassing narrative; it is the story of an entire community and a culture on the brink of change deftly told through many voices.

567. Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. by E. Somerville, pub. 1899.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "A series of comic tales of the nineteenth century Anglo-Irish life dealing largely with hunting, shooting, and horse-riding.... We hear the wit and music of English as it was spoken in rural Ireland and west Cork is pleasantly evoked in descriptions of rivers, coasts, bogs, and fields.

A mostly fun and sometimes obtuse collection of stories centered on Major Sinclair Yeates. Yeates retired from the army and took a position of Resident Magistrate in Western Ireland, where he encounters many colorful characters and endures many more unfortunate incidents. While James Herriot's stories seem to owe a debt to Somerville, his stories are more successful. Both authors depict the trials of country life as experienced by a hapless outsider that is frequently the butt of the stories jokes, but The Irish R.M was published in 1899 and so many of the stories center on obscure-to-me nuances of social class, horses, and fox-hunting that I was mystified more often than I was amused. If you happen to stumble across a copy, I do recommend "Trinket's Colt". The surprise ending had me laughing out loud on the subway.

568. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, pub. 1862

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Turnegev's skill lies at the level of characterization: the profound (mis)communication that operates between the main protagonists ensures that...they are ultimately understandable and extremely human. Fathers and Sons remains a classic and beautifully drawn examination of the necessity and power of youthful idealism, and its pitfalls."

I made the mistake of listening to this as an audiobook; there were too many philosophical discussions and monologues on subjects of which i am ignorant, and I typically need to see something to understand it --to read the words on the page, to review notes from college lectures. So, I missed quite a bit of the narration. When it was less philosophical, I enjoyed it tremendously, but I do feel as if I haven't really "read" the novel. Bare minimum, I do need to find a passage in my paper copy so I can figure out what happened to a character that i thought had died, but from the epilogue seemed to be alive and well.....oops.

569. The Counterfeiters by André Gide, pub. 1925

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "...we are reading a novel about a novelist writing a novel about a novelist writing a novel... Reading The Counterfeiters, all of our certainties as readers of nineteenth century novels are called in question...

I thought the first half of this novel was fantastic. It starts off with a dramatic event and gradually introduces the reader to the cast of characters and in a very Dickensian way shows the reader how all the characters' stories intersect, foreshadowing an explosive climax. One of the main characters preoccupations is the false face put on by adults in society and the deception, both conscious and unconscious, practiced in everyday society. Then, about 75 pages in, we discover that one of the seemingly minor characters, Eduoard, is working on a novel titled "The Counterfeiters", a novel depicting "the struggle between the facts presented by reality and the ideal reality", adding a delicious layer of meta-fiction. Had Gide been able to maintain the brilliant premise of the first half, this would have been a 6-star read. I loved how this novel had so many layers of reality, so many interpretations of "counterfeits". But for me, the experiment lost its effervescence by the end.

570. The Burning Plain by Juan Rulfo, pub. 1953

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The skillful handling of temporal structure and narrative voices, together with the dexterous balance between reality and fantasy, remote from magical realism, {and} the great originality of these stories...{is enough} for him to be considered one of the greatest writers of his time."

A collection of short stories mostly set in the desert-plains of Mexico. I was fascinated by the different writing styles on display. The first story was told in first person, from the point of view of a young child (who is actually a developmentally disabled adult). One story began with a poetic description of a town at daybreak. One story is narrated by a member of a revolutionary band fighting Government soldiers. But all the stories depict the bleak landscape, the hardscrabble life and the spark of hope necessary to living. Overall, these stories are masterfully crafted.

You've already read more than half of the books? That is impressive!
Your reviews are great and I will come back to compare our reading experiences with each other.

@82, I also quite liked The burning plain but I could only read it in small doses because I found it so bleak.

>84 paruline: I had to quick-read them. Although the book probably hadn't been checked out of the library in years, as soon as _I_ checked it out, someone put a hold on it! I read all the stories in two days and had to return the book before I had time to think about them/write the review above.

>83 PersephonesLibrary: Thank you!

571. The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez, pub. 1975

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{it} is Gabriel García Márquez's most demanding and most experimental novel.... described as 'a poem on the solitude of power'..... After revolutionaries discover the Patriarch's decomposing body in his palace...Márquez unleashes a great torrent of words.... The novel unfolds through six sections of almost entirely unpunctuated prose...space and time are consistently disrupted with the narrative taking unexpected detours into real historical events and wild flights of fancy."

Okay, this book was difficult. There is punctuation -- lots and lots of commas -- but, I think there may have been a grand total of 14 sentences. And while the the writing is fluid and pulled me along, the slightest distraction meant it was impossible to pick up where I left off (since there are no paragraphs or visual pauses).

In addition to shifts in time and space, there was a fluid, shifting first-person perspective -- sometimes it was the Patriarch using "I", sometimes one of his confidants (?) and sometimes it was a woman.

I loved the multi-layered reality, hints of the current reality interspersed with events and memories of the past. But it seems like to understand the beginning, one must have read through to the end...

The The premise is fascinating and the writing is phenomenal, but it's also exhausting and not enjoyable, per se. And, oh, because it's GGM there is the requisite dirty-old-man having sexual relations with a-barely-pubescent-girl scene. This one was kinkier than expected.

I wonder if this novel would be better on audio or even more difficult to follow?

have you read 100(1) years of solitude? How does it compare. Boy, I hated that book.... as I did my best to show in my review (http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?p=283) Will I like Autumn?

>88 arukiyomi: I suspect you should make Autumn your 992nd book.

I read both Love & 100 Years, but it was more than 15 years ago. One of them I accidentally abandoned 30 pages from the end because I set it down and never remembered to pick it back up. Judging from your review, Autumn has less of a plot, longer sentences (more like 20-page sentences than 2.5 page sentences) and probably fewer characters. The text does not often indicate who is narrating at a given moment or who they may be narrating about; there are at most ten characters that are distinct enough to be remembered.

dying first does sound preferable to reading Autum... thanks for the warning!

No! Although The Autumn of the Patriarch is a difficult read, with sentences over 8 pages long, it is certainly worth living for!

>90 arukiyomi: & >91 Simone2:

Weirdly, I agree with both of you? I disliked the book and yet, recognize that the prose is beautiful....

572. Snow by Orhan Pamuk, pub. 2002

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "This is a tense political thriller, cut through with moments of black farce. The reader is bombarded with different views, as the protagonist meets fundamentalists, secularists, writers, religious leaders, and the 'head-scarf girls'. The book considers not only the clash between Turkey's various political and cultural groups, but also contemplates the basic gap between the East and the West, the nature of religious belief, and how art is created."

I had tried to read this book once before, not too long after it was published in translation, but abandoned it. I had been dreading picking it up again. Don't believe the above description -- this is not a tense political thriller by any stretch of the imagination.

However, a bombardment of different views is quite apt. The protagonist is an exiled poet, visiting Istanbul on family matters and journeys to Kars in pursuit of a recently divorced school-mate. He tell people he is in Kars on assignment for a German newspaper to write an article about an impending election, a recent decision to ban head-scarfs in the classroom, and a subsequent series of suicides. So, it is in the protagonists supposed role of reporter that the reader is subjected to various view points. rather than evolving naturally from conversations or an omniscient narrator, the author presents them as monologues and diatribes directed at his protagonist.

Luckily, this time the literary techniques helped pull me through. The narrator is a separate individual than the protagonist. At first, this is only hinted at, but as the book progresses, he begins intruding more into the story, framing an incident about to be narrated, mentioning a particular episode was told to him by another character so that there begin to be two parallel stories -- that of the protagonist and that of the narrator efforts to discover and relate the protagonist's story. It's an interesting structure that provides the foreshadowing and tension necessary to drive the narrative, but at the same time it also forces a detachment in manner of telling the story.

Overall, there are moments of stunning beauty in the writing, as the protagonist wanders the streets of Kars ruminating on the beauty of the snow and the creation of art. It is fascinating to read about a culture and religious beliefs that are foreign to me. It may not have closed the gap between my Western view and the East, but hopefully it has helped to narrow it.

This message has been deleted by its author.

Ooops, not a 1001 book!

uh... I hate it when that happens!

573. The Guiltless by Hermann Broch, pub. 1950

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "A loosely connected set of short stories...{it} paints a picture of interwar European society that is bleak and ominous.... Arrestingly written in a mixture of understated prose and satiric verse, The Guiltless remains today a haunting and powerful novel that forces the reader to concede that...'our responsibility, like our wickedness, is bigger than ourselves'."

While some chapters were haunting and beautiful they did not make up for the the chapters that were dry and boring or filled with incomprehensible (to me) monologues. Broch's publisher wanted to put together a collection of stories that had been published in various magazines. When Broch received the galleys, he didn't think the stories were worthy of re-publication because the world had changed so much between the 1930s and the the late 1940s. So, he wrote six additional stories and then connected the new stories and the five stories published previously with lyrical poems, titled "Voices", creating a new entity. So, part of my confoundedness, I think, is due to the structure -- the characters don't make sense because they weren't necessarily written as the same character.

I'm sorry The Guiltless was disappointing. Broch's The Death of Virgil is one of my all-time favorites--have you read it yet? I would describe it as "haunting and beautiful" as well.

>97 StevenTX: The Guiltless was over my head and I couldn't give it the concentration it deserved. I prefer to read books without knowing anything about the content or the circumstances. For some books, and I think The Guiltless is one, knowing the context is important and for me a second reading is necessary to appreciate them.

I haven't read The Death of Virgil yet. I'm going to have to wait a bit, as I suspect Broch requires more focus than I have right now.

574. Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas, pub. 2001

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The clarity of Soldiers of Salamis is certainly one of the reasons why this deceptively innocent look at both sides of the Spanish Civil War, set simultaneously during the war and the present day, that contributed to the novel being both a brilliant popular success and also attracted the emphatic appreciation of high-brow writers and critics."

This little novel is oh-so-very meta. The narrator is a journalist and failed novelist that becomes fascinated by a vignette related by an interviewee. The interviewee relates a family story about how his father escaped a firing squad in the last months of the civil war.

The book is dividied into three sections. In the first section, the Cercas presents the narrator and the first version of the firing squad story. The narrator, while in pursuit of the facts surrounding the story, relates his mundane life, the difficulties of writing novels. I found the first section a little hard to follow and ended up creating a flow chart to sort out who the narrator talked to and which facts did he learn in conversation and the subsequent interviews that ensued.

The second section is the narrators "true tale" about Rafael Sanchez Mazas's escape from a firing squad, the soldier that did not kill him, and the forest friends that kept him hidden and alive until the Nationalist forces arrived. This section read very much like a biography -- a sequence of factual events without dwelling in the interior world of any of the characters. It's interesting because the reader already knows the story and learns all the facts that the narrator learned, to see how the "full story" is written.

At the beginning of the third section, the narrator has just completed his true tale and realizes, while a complete story; "the book wasn't bad, but insufficient, like a mechanism that was whole, yet incapable of performing the function for which it had been devised because it was missing a part." Disconsolate, he returns to working as journalist. This is where it gets amusing -- one of the first people the narrator interviews is Roberto Bolaño. Both in the interview and through later conversations, the two discuss writing and heroism and Bolaño tells stories from his past. One of which involved a certain Republican solider that the narrator belatedly realizes could supply the missing component of Mazas's story.

This little novel has won both a translation prize and a literary prize. It is very intelligent and intriguing. I generally go with the flow of the novel, sure that in the end it will all make sense. I think the last time I felt compelled to take notes while reading a novel was to keep the characters straight for the first few hundred pages of War & Peace. And while I found it difficult, it was also fascinating.

575. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, pub. 1966

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Joyously brief...this is the postmodernist's perfect thriller guaranteed to fox the literal-minded sleuth.... This box of puzzles wears its enigmas with the smile of a sphinx.... {It has a} structure of narrative gaming, interweaving conspiracy theories, more structural social critiques, and doses of slapstick...and a pastiche Jacobian revenge tragedy.... Oscillations between ideological absurdity and mediated superficiality sketch out a wasteland of seemingly empty but wildly proliferating signs, and the story careers from thought experiment to anarchist miracles."

While I enjoyed the bizarre carnival ride provided by this novel, I am at a loss of words in attempting to discuss it.

576. Los Mares del Sur (Southern Seas) by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, pub. 1979

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The novel is among the best (or perhaps the best) of Montalbán's Pepe Carvalho books, with several nods to the best traditions of Hollywood film noir, and it also creates a portrait of the Barcelona of the time that would be hard to excel."

I found this to be a rather unremarkable mystery novel. It is less action driven then most with quite a few of the detective's interviews facilitating long-winded monologues explaining a character's life philosophy. I am not familiar enough with Hollywood noir or Spanish history to appreciate any subtle allusions the author might have made. It was a descent quick plane-read.

577. Jack Maggs by Peter Carey, pub. 1997

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Jack Maggs is a complex historical novel that addresses issues of literary, financial, and emotional indebtedness.... {It} is a creative reworking of the central themes of Great Expectations. Not a prequel or pastiche, Carey's novel instead is more like a musical variation on Dickens' material, recasting it in a parallel nineteenth-century universe."

Even without having read Great Expectations, this book was a lot of fun! Jack Maggs, a convict sent to Australia and forbidden to return, is newly, dangerously, arrived in England. Having become a wealthy man in Australia, Maggs has come to reclaim his son. But his son does not want to found and flees upon news of Jack's eminent arrival, leaving Jack no recourse but to hide under the cover of a servant's livery as he searches for his son. Jack's past and present life are quickly entangled with those of his employer, fellow servants, and acquaintances setting off ripples of unintended events.

I found this novel to be more enjoyable than many of Dickens' works. It is much shorter and therefore more tightly plotted. All of the characters are met through Jack's narrative, so there are no eye-rolling coincidences in which seemingly unrelated minor characters are all brought into contact with each other. While I see the similarities to Dickens, i was also reminded of Stephenson's The Confusion, perhaps because both books focus on a rough, but charming, criminal named Jack.

578. Troubles by J. G. Farrell (removed 2008)

579. In Parenthesis by David Jones, pub. 1937

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Jones was attempting to universalize the war experience; to portray his 'truth' of the war in a new voice that gave it proper tongue.... Critics have often had positive things to say about the work...{extoling it} as a classic waiting to be rediscovered. What they often forget is the sheer inaccessibility of the novel..."

Jones is a portrayal of the confused, fragmented experience of a soldier in WWI. His often stunning prose is interspersed with poetry, fragments of popular songs, allusions to celtic and English legends and random associations. It is mostly baffling with moments of lyrical beauty.

No review of Troubles? that's one I've been looking forward to, have read the other two in the set. Thank you for taking in In Parenthesis for the group challenge; the challenge was too much for me!

(Oops, realize that Troubles is one that I've read -- the decaying hotel, right? Very memorable book, I just got the title wrong.)

>105 annamorphic: Yes, Troubles is the decaying hotel

580. Amok by Stefan Zweig, pub.1922

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Written as reported speech that, like the colonial setting, recalls Joseph Conrad, it is a gripping tale of passion, moral duty, and uncontrollable unconscious forces.... A Freudian exploration of power of the unconscious and latent sexuality, Amok is a finely wrought story full of psychological insight."

I did not find this novella to have much of a psychological insight, I'm afraid -- the reader is kept at too much of a distance from the main character. The frame story is a man is on a passenger ship sailing to Europe and one sleepless night he encounters a reclusive passenger in some distress and desperate to tell his story. The reclusive passenger, a doctor, relates how he disgraced himself in Europe and was compelled to travel to India to make a living. He arrives hoping to make himself and the lives of the native better, but the isolation and the tropics drive him mad, until a fateful encounter with an English woman patient causes him to "run amok".

The storytelling is very clever and in some places compelling, but I found it also too unbelievable. Definitely read this novella years before reading his Chess Story as they are quite similar, but the latter is far superior.

581. The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith, pub. 1766

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "...there are numerous stories within stories. The novel contains sentimental set pieces, but its overall register is richly comic.... Not only is the plot untidy and digressive, but the text itself includes non-fictional elements, such as poems, sermons, and various disquisitions on politics, legal punishment, and poetics."

Unfortunately, this book was the wrong choice as a plane book. I might have enjoyed it more if I had felt less "compelled" to read it. I did not enjoy the non-fictional elements and didn't quite see the humor, either. I should hve read this in closer proximity to Middlemarch, David Copperfield, and works by Jane Austen as they all seem to love and/or reference this book.

582. The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić, pub. 1945

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Strictly speaking {it} is more a chronicle than a novel, organized into a series of vignettes describing the life of the local population and it's transformations over the course of centuries.... the book is also a story of language itself. The social and cultural changes brought on by successive rule of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires are reflected in the populace's vocabulary, their thoughts, bodies, and attitudes. Throughout, the bridge endures as a symbol of continuity."

I loved this book. I loved the use of interlinked vignettes to relate history through the perspective of the individuals living through it. I loved how a story told in one chapter was a legend about the bridge/town that was part of the culture of the people in a later chapter. I loved how a defiant young man in one chapter would reappear as a minor character in the next as middle-aged family man in the next and the next as an old man rejecting modern attitudes. Perhaps not surprisingly, most of the stories center around men and the few women protagonists are somehow less real. Other than that, the book is excellent.

583. The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith, pub. 1892

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "One of the great English comic novels, {it} bridges the world of Dickens to that of Waugh and Wodehouse.... Like Dickens' Micawber, Pooter is a comic figure who transcends his immediate context, largely through the diary's surreally funny style.... Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones and John Cleese's Basil Fawlty might not exist without his example."

This slim novel was a quick read and while there are some amusing moments, I did not find it laugh-out-loud funny. It is not quite my sense of humor.

584. There but for the by Ali Smith, pub. 2011, (added in the 2012 edition)

585. Dom Casmurro by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, pub. 1899

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "By the time Machado de Assis wrote Dom Casmurro, he was the acknowledged master of Brazilian literature, who had been teasing his respectable public with subtly hostile depiction of the vices and hypocrisies for more than three decades. This funny innovative disturbing noel is the consummation of his idiosyncratic art.

For some reason, I had been intimidated by this author -- "the greatest writer of Brazilian literature". I expected his work to be erudite, dense, brilliant, and maybe arcane. Dom Casmurro turned out to be delightful and entirely readable.

The novel is narrated by Bento, now and elderly man telling his life story. He was promised to the priesthood by his mother and as a child this was also his greatest wish. But as he grew and his departure to the seminary was delayed by his devoted, widowed mother, Bento falls unrelentingly in love with the neighbor's daughter. Through her wiles and the help of the loquacious Jose Dias, Bento is eventually allowed to leave the seminary to study law and to marry the love of his life. And this is when his unhappiness begins.

The prose is often magnificent and the story is charmingly related with Bento frequently address the reader and commenting on the story he relates. I should have known better than to immerse myself in his story and thereby miss the subtle layer of the author's interpretation.

Machado de Assis was one of my best discoveries last year. I liked even more his other book from this list, The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas. Though they have a lot in common so I suggest waiting a while before reading that one.

>113 annamorphic: Ha! Maybe I'll hide my copy under/behind other tbr books so I don't read it too soon. I am looking forward to it.

586. The Wars by Timothy Findley, pub. 1977

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The Wars is a Postmodern narrative made up of a series of personal testimonies, letters, and diary entries interspersed with the reflections of the researcher...attempting to construct a cohesive history of Robert Ross.... The effect is a convincing documentary style text."

Remarkable! Although a scant 200 pages, Findley has managed to create a haunting story full of vivid images and nuanced characters. It is not a typical WWI story dwelling on the horror of trench warfare or depicting the large-scale destruction of a major battle (but they are not omitted either). It is the story of one soldier, Robert Ross, a 19-year-old Canadian from a well-to-do family, and one troubling incident.

The novel opens with the description of a scene. We are in the middle of battle -- artillery falling, smoke, fire, a stranded supply train and Robert evacuating dozens of horses. We then start from an earlier point in the story from a different perspective. While this is Robert's story, he is not the one narrating it. His story is being pieced together by an anonymous researcher through newspaper articles, old letters, historical documents, and interviews in a technique one reviewer described as meta-historical fiction.

It is brilliantly done. Through the double-lens, we can both experience the insanity of war and yet realize that we can't ever know what it was like.

587. The Glass Bees by Ernst Jünger, pub. 1957.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} has been claimed as a major contribution to the science fiction genre and as a precursor of magical realism, but Jünger's dense, reflective work is in truth too idiosyncratic for any categorization.... As a story, this is almost derisory. But the text crackles with ideas that fascinate us by their prescience, seeming to forsee the Internet, nanotechnology, and global warming, as well as a world dominated by technologically hip, morally ambivalent plutocrats."

A science-fiction novel that takes place in a future that diaviated from history some time after WWI. The basic plot revolves around Richard, an unemployed former cavalry officer and tank commander. Having finally reached a point where he thinks he might be willing to sacrifice his old-fashioned principles, Richard reaches out to a former comrade that has made a success of himself as a kind of broker. Richard is offered a chance to interview with the great, reclusive industrialist Zapparoni, with the understanding that the job on offer is one that may require unscrupulous behavior.

The writing is at times mesmerizing and often baffling. The entire novel spans two days in Richard's life and is very much his internal monologue. It's baffling because in real time, Zapparoni asks Richard a question then there is a 20-page flashback/internal monologue depicting in-depth all the thoughts that would flash through one's mind, and then Richard answers the question posed (20 pages later). But the few glimpses of the world Jünger has created are extraordinary and the description of the scene in the garden, where Richard first encounters the glass bees, is stunning. I just wasn't prepared for, or focused enough for, the endless internal philosophizing.

#586, great review! You really made me want to read this book which previously was not on my radar at all.

>117 annamorphic: Mission accomplished! ;)

588. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, pub. 1945.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Arguably Evelyn Waugh's best novel, and certainly his most famous.... Waugh had converted to Catholicism in 1930, and in many ways Brideshead Revisited can be seen as a pubic expression of his own belief, and an exposition of divine grace. Within the novel he explores a complex interdependency of relationships and, in particular, the overarching importance of religious faith, which, although not always prominent, ultimately prevails."

I wonder if I would have enjoyed this novel more if I had gotten the Catholicism angle? Or maybe it ws my inability to pronounce the title correctly (I still think of it as Bride-shed rather than Brides-head). As it was, it was a fine way to pass the some travel hours, but a week later I don't really remember the novel and have little to say about it.

589. The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh, pub. 1990.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Intricately weaving together the memories and stories of various characters, The Shadow Lines acts as a microcosm of a nation rent by politics, exposing the borders, both physical and metaphorical, that can divide individuals."

This is a book full of stories. The unnamed narrator was born in a poor neighborhood in Calcutta and as his family's circumstances improved moved to a better neighborhood and eventually was educated in England. He has always collected stories, first as a way to escape his circumstances and to fulfill his desire to see more of the world, then as way to make sense of his family's history and their intertwined existence with the English Price family.

The narration jumps back and forth in time and space with the narrator telling his stories as they occur to him -- a story about his cousin Ilsa reminds him of a story May Price told him about her brother Nick, which requires a background story about his grandfather, and so on. It is a wonderfully rich, complicated novel, but one that requires quite a bit of focus to keep straight the cast of characters and the timeline.

590. Morvern Callar by Alan Warner, pub. 1995.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Taking in the unrepentant hedonism of raveculture of the early nineties, Club Med holidays, and British tourism, this was the defining text of a generation. This powerful voice remains surprisingly vital."

I am completely indifferent to this novel. It may have been "the novel" for a select group of people, but I suspect I am from the wrong generation and the wrong country to appreciate it. Morvern may have had a unique voice, but the character (the person who's head we're supposedly in), as far as I can tell, was emotionally dead.

591. The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor, pub. 1989.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "...Tharoor enlists the aid of the epic Indian stories of the Mahabharata, basing his novel around the interaction of ancient myth with modern Indian political and historical realities. The result is a dazzling, sensitive, and often riotously funny ride through a semi-imaginary 20th Century India."

It was a lot of fun! It is a satirical retelling of the Indian independence movement, roughly from the 1920s to the 1980s. With only a surface knowledge of Gandhi and a vague awareness of the events/emotions surrounding the partition, I still found the novel amusing. It was very meta -- the narrator Ved Vyas is telling the sotry to a scribe and is constantly interrupting with comments to the scribe and very self-consciously telling a story.

There are alos lots of clever jokes aimed at different audiences. I may not have fully understood the main thrust of the satire, but I had loads of fun trying to figure out some of the literary references. For example, each section was titled after a book:

The First Book: The Twice-Born Tale
The Second Book: The Duel With the Crown
The Third Book: The Rains Came
The Fourth Book: A Raj Quartet
The Fifth Book: The Powers of Silence
The Sixth Book: Forbidden Fruit
The Seventh Book: The Son Also Rises
The Eighth Book: Midnight's Parents
The Ninth Book: Him — Or, the Far Power-Villain
The Tenth Book: Darkness at Dawn
The Eleventh Book: Renunciation — Or, the Bed of Arrows
The Twelfth Book: The Man Who Could Not Be King
The Thirteenth Book: Passages Through India
The Fourteenth Book: The Rigged Veda
The Fifteenth Book: The Act of Free Choice
The Sixteenth Book: The Bungle Book — Or, the Reign of Error
The Seventeenth Book: The Drop of Honey — A Parable
The Eighteenth Book: The Path to Salvation

Unfortunately, in the last few chapters, it seems as though all character development stops as the book focuses solely on the political machinations of a few individuals. I am sure a better understanding of India's history and familiarity with the referenced epic would have made the novel even more enjoyable and I look forward to re-reading it someday when I am know more of India's history.

592. Disobedience by Alberto Moravia, pub. 1948.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Disobedience is a highly original treatment of the coming of age theme. Luca...becomes increasingly dissatisfied with all that he previously cherished. He embarks on a process of what he perceives to be logical, calculated disobedience.... A heavily charged, complex work dealing with teenage rebellion, sexuality, and alienation, Disobedience is a fascinating portrait of an Oedipal awakening."

This is a delightful novel, simply told. It is impressive when an author can convey experiences of an individual very different in thought and experiences than I in a way that i can understand without playing on the emotions. Luca is a fascinating character experiencing a rough time in life, but the author manages to remain objective without being cold.

593. Cigarettes by Harry Mathews, pub. 1987.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Mathews was the only American member of the Oulipo... {whose principles} may or may not be the organizing principle behind Cigarettes, which is set over a period of thirty years among New York's generally idly rich. Each chapter is subtle transformation of those surrounding it, where similar events are sen from a different point of view."

I should have kept a character map. I did realize early on that the chapters were interwoven, but I thought it would follow a more logical progression with one of the two titled characters appearing in the next chapter. But it quickly spiraled out and I lost track of who was related to whom and who was cheating on whom and who with. That said, the writing is very good and compelling at times. Other times (particularly Phoebe's looooooong chapters) it is not as convincing. I didn't think the author's rendition of Phoebe's story was believable.

594. Rameau's Nephew by Denis Diderot, pub. 1805.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Part novel, part essay, part Socratic dialogue, it expanded the boundaries of what is possible in fiction.... The book is not a simple morality tale. Like its tragicomic hero, it is a complex challenge to all forms of thought and reactionary behavior...it is also a savage indictment of the moral hypocrisy, intellectual pretensions, and spiritual vacuity of eighteenth-century Parisian society."

And it was BORING. The plot: the author bumps into the nephew of Rameau and the two sit in a cafe and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. There are no chapters and few paragraphs, just page after page of blocks of text. I have no idea what was discussed, because I was not interested in 90% of it.

595. The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth, pub. 1932.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} ranks as one of the finest European historical novels of the twentieth century. In evoking a specific milieu -- the provinces of the Hapsburg Empire during its final years of ceremonial grandeur and political instability.... This novel explores the complexities of family and friendship, translating a sense of nostalgia for a lost age into an unsentimental historical narrative."

While I enjoyed this novel, it took a lot longer to read than it should have. I found myself often putting it down and forgetting to pick it back up. I suspect this was due to the "unsentimental" narrative. Although the reader is purportedly in the head of one Trotta or another, I never got the sense of what the characters were thinking or feeling. A lot of it seemed to be description of the world around them. But when Roth was writing something more plot driven, it was wonderful. The section when the Father is in Vienna going through a series of meeting in order to secure an audience with the Emperor to save Carl Joseph's reputation was nicely paced and even suspenseful. But as the main theme of the novel was decay and loss and it was expressed almost as a fading away, the excellent writing didn't hold my attention as well as it should have.

596. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, pub. 1953.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Lucky Jim was influential in defining the direction of English postwar fiction. {it} is iconoclastic, satirical, and disrespective of the norms of conservative society, and very funny.... It has usually been seen as a very English novel....a story of frustrated ambition and talent , which exposes England as a drab wilderness that is ruled and run by colorless charlatans."

Jim Dixon has unfortunately been clever enough to capture a position in the history department of a provincial college, supposedly as their medieval specialist. It is a position he has come to realize that he does not want and for which he is not suited. His hapless cleverness and habitual drunkenness results in all manner of entertainingly awkward scrapes. A fun read, but I better it would be even more hilarious to those with closer ties to the academic world.

597. Money by Martin Amis, pub. 1984

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "John Self, the empty everyman of Money, is one of Martin Amis's more powerful and memorable creations.... The novel offers a darkly satirical celebration of the insatiable but righteous greed of Reaganite America and its counterpart in Thatcherite Britain."

I found this book to be darkly, sickly fascinating. You don't want to look, yet you can't look away.... John Self is a "successful" advertising man (his fame stems from a commercial that was too...inappropriate to air) that has been offered the opportunity to direct a movie based on a concept he developed. At the urging of his co-producer, Self caters to his every desire, spending what seems to be unlimited money on alcohol, pornography, and prostitutes. Quite frankly, he is a despicable character. And yet. Amis has done a remarkable job putting the reader inside Self's head and depicting just enough self-loathing and awareness of his social-ineptness to maintain a glimmer of sympathy for this otherwise loathsome character. As the end nears, I found myself both rooting for Self's inevitable downfall and hoping he would avoid the looming disasters -- brilliant writing.

Oh, and Martin Amis has also included himself in the novel in a not-terribly-flattering portrayal which is fun to see.

128 - sounds interesting! I have that one pending but never quite got to it. Might need to remedy that because 'darkly, sickly fascinating' sounds cool.

>129 Yells: It has a bumbling can-do-no-right character like Confederacy of Dunces mixed with an awfulness of lifestyle sort of like Trainspotting. If that appeals ;)

598. Loving by Henry Green, pub. 1945

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "What sets this book apart from other comedies of manners is the great sensitivity with which Green reveals that the experience of loving is rooted in class relations.... To each social class, there belongs its own experience of love and its own manner of believing that love transcends social class."

This is a delightful novella set in an English aristocrats house in Ireland during the beginning of WWII. Upstairs is the somewhat oblivious Mrs. Tennant, her daughter-in-law the troubled Mrs. Jack, and the young ladies. Downstairs there is the newly promoted butler Charley Raunce, the rebellious housekeeper, the drunken chef and her wayward young son, the two maids, and various other staff.

In so few pages, many of the characters are no more than brief sketches, but Green is able to create complex inner worlds for some of them -- Edith whose growing love for Charley creates a distance between her and Mary, previously her friend and roommate. We see the children at play and the odd fantasy world they inhibit. We see Charley in his attempts to decipher the previous butler's system of augmenting his income and gain mastery over the staff. We see Mrs. Jack and her inability to be present as she is deep in her thoughts and private worries. And so much more. But, while completely charming, the writing did not always make clear the jumps between the different perspectives and some of the characters had way to many changes of mind for such a short period of time, making them seem inconsistent.

599. A Day Off by Storm Jameson, pub. 1933.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Jameson advocated a new, central role for the social novelist as a silent witness, for whom stylistic economy should lways prevail over needless embellishment. In this book, it is her depersonalized commentary that so pervasively implicates the reader, constantly testing the reader's capacity for empathetic comprehension of the protagonists inner world. Jameson makes us continually aware of our implied position as observers participating in her heroine's futile quest for belonging."

Another novella, thank goodness. While the writing is excellent, I would not have wanted to spend much more time in the bleak world of the main character. The narrator has decided that if the weather is good, she will spend the day in Richmond, a park-infested suburb of London. At first she is a sympathetic character -- deeply worried about the possible loss of the man that has been keeping her, she is is a middle-aged woman with no skills and bad legs down to her last few pounds. Aware of her impending poverty and shabby appearance, she speaks sharply to waiters out of fear of being treated badly. As the day wars on, she falls suddenly in and out of revery -- her poor upbringing, punishing work in the mill, the flight to London to work in hotels, a secure position lost due to WWI, and so on.

She wasn't a bad person, but in the limited number of choices, she made bad decisions and thirty years of constant worry and grinding near-poverty, have warped her. As the day goes on, and we witness her her actions and interactions with others and realize she is not a nice person. So, although the writing is wonderful, the story is so bleak and without hope that it is difficult to "enjoy".

Great review of Loving! I'll be putting it nearer the top of the tbr pile.

Any grand plans for #600?

>134 Yells: It's already been read (had to slip in a couple of novellas so the big "impressive" book would get a milestone number), but I am still ruminating on what to say about The Recognitions

>133 paruline: Thanks! I think you'll enjoy it, especially if you're a Downton Abbey fan.

600. The Recognitions by William Gaddis, pub. 1955.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "It is in the pursuit of the real that this immense novel explores every imaginable way that cultural products can be counterfeited.... Almost every character here is an American, but the context is European high culture.... Based on confused conversations -- often at parties or in cafes -- the word dominates.... The same scenes recur at the end as at the beginning, so this novel resembles a snake swallowing its tail.... The Recognitions was an influential 'sleeper' novel.

This novel is something else. It is a huge volume spanning approximately 25 years and dozens of characters. The main focus is Wyatt Gwyon, raised in a strict puritan atmosphere, he defies family tradition and leaves home to become an artist rather than a Pastor. But, he cannot escape his upbringing and his struggle with morality prevents him from becoming a successful artist in his own right. He makes a deal with the devil and agrees to create counterfeit paintings.

However, Wyatt himself is not present for the majority of the novel. It is mostly filled with various characters from the New York scene. The reason for this is elucidated in a passage in Chapter seven:

"Wyatt says he feels "...as though I were reading a novel, yes. And then, reading it, but the hero fails to appear, fails to be working out some plan of comedy or, disaster? All the materials are there, yes. The sounds, the images, telephones and telephone numbers? The ships and subways, the . . . the . . ."
skipping a paragraph
"-Yes while I wait. I wait. Where is he? Listen, he's there all the time. None of them moves, but it reflects him, none of them . . . reacts but to react with him, none of them hates but to hate with him, to hate him, and loving . . . none of them loves, but, loving . ."

So, presumably most of the characters reflect aspects of Wyatt and his struggle to determine what is real, what is moral, and how to live in an imperfect world.

This novel feels like a mid-point between Ulysses and Against the Day. With the former, it shares an immense erudition, a melding of a huge body of cultural knowledge, a deliberate structure. But it is looser than Ulysses, not so tightly plotted and the moral is somehow anti-climatic and dull. The later seems more free-wheeling and less full of angst than The Recognitions.

I spent most of June with this novel, finding it slow going at first. Then 2/3 of the way through it picked up tremendous speed -- I read 200 pages in two days to see "what happened" to several of the sub-plots. The last few chapters were disappointing. Wyatt's revelation seemed...banal. But overall I really enjoyed it. I loved the many layers and the various sub-plots that reference other incidents. I loved the ruminations on the nature of art and creation. But the conclusion somehow did not match the brilliance of all that went before.

I got stuck part way through--maybe about 200 pages in, after quite enjoying the first section. I decided life was too short to keep trying, and declared it 'read'. Maybe I should pick it up again? Or maybe not.

Congratulations on the 600!

>138 ipsoivan: Life is definitely too short to read something horrid. But if you are ever interested in trying again there is a fantastic webpage: http://williamgaddis.org/recognitions/I1summar.shtml

It gives chapter summaries (with occasional spoilers) and also has lots and lots and lots of annotations. I liked it much better than Against the Day. It's more enjoyable than Ulysses, but not quite as good, if that makes sense.

>139 puckers: Thanks!

>140 ELiz_M: thanks for the link. I'll take a look later today.

601. Disappearance by David Dabydeen, pub. 1993

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "It is the way in which Dabydeen incorporates the theoretical idea that absences articulate more than presences into the fabric of recent British national sentiments that gives this short novel a seriousness and resonance that transcends its lightness of touch."

This novel has an intriguing premise -- a young Guyanese engineer is drafted by his former mentor to come to England and work on a containing wall in Kent. He is advised to board with Mrs. Rutherford, as she is the one person in the village that is interested in strangers.

There are many compelling elements to the novel the narrator's memories of his Caribbean childhood, Mrs. Rutherford's stories of her difficult marriage, time spent in Africa, the hypocrisy of the British are fascinating. But the novel seems constructed badly-- over and over the narrator reflects on the question (also the first line of the novel) "Why did I become an Engineer?" and yet we learn next to nothing about his work in England or interactions with anyone besides Mrs. Rutherford. Somehow the novel sets up expectations of what it is going to be about that are completely different than what it really is about, and so the story doesn't seem to make sense -- I'm expecting it to be about coming-of-age and modern day racial conflict and missing all the connections and subtleties regarding absences and disappearances.

Congratulations, belatedly, on passing the 600 mark! And with such a challenging book, too. I read a chunk of it some years ago because my uncle, a novelist himself, claimed that it was a Great Novel. That was the last time I took Uncle Don's recommendation for light reading....

Standing ovation! Hurray for #600!

>144 annamorphic: Thank you! I think it is a 'Great Novel', but light reading it is not.

>145 paruline: Thanks :)

602. Small Remedies by Shashi Deshpande, pub. 2000

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Written in careful sparse prose without ornate description, Deshpande's novel skillfully blends episodes from Madhu's past and present to offer a complex portrayal of a few central characters."

The central story belongs to Madhu. She ostensibly has traveled to Bhavanipur to write the biography of Savitribai Indorekar, an elderly, renowned singer. But journey and the work have been given to her by friends/family as a means to lift her out of a deep grief. Madhu has faint connections to Savitribai - a neighbor for a short time in Madhu's childhood- and to the family with which she stays - the husband is a distant relation to her Aunt/foster mother Leela. And it is through the interviews of Savitribai and the conversations with her host family that Madhu unwillingly remembers events from her past that have lead to her current existence.

This is a quiet novel that needs careful reading. The reader is thrown into the middle of the story -- Madhu waking up in Bhavanipur without the context of where she is and why. As the narrative is told from Madhu's perspective, it slips from present to past fluidly and not always with an indication of "when" Madhu is. Memories are presented out of order and characters sometimes out of context and it was not always clear to me how people were inter-related. Nonetheless, it is a beautiful unfolding and rich story. I would have enjoyed it much more if I had read with more attention -- keeping a character list and investigating the offhand mentions of unfamiliar Indian customs/holidays.

603. Waterland by Graham Swift, pub. 1983.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: The metaphor of land reclamation plays a significant role in the narrator's assessment of the consolations of storytelling and historical narrative. The narrator, Crick, sees history not as the march of progress, but something more like the constant, cyclical battle against the encroaching waters the Fens.... he advances the idea that narrative cannot be justified by appealing to its beneficial consequences, but by it's power to fend off nothingness.

I should have loved this novel with the multi-layered story lines -- Tom Crick's predicament in the present tense with his wife's instability, the classroom battle with a precocious student, memories from Crick's childhood, and the pieces of historical essays he researches. Unfortunately, I felt put off by it, never connected to anything and couldn't really focus on it. Not a good beach-vacation read.

Oh and this book has a weird connection to There but for the -- they both have scenes that take place at The Royal Observatory in Greenwich and I swear the girl jumping over the prime meridian could have been in playing there when tom Crick and his wife took their walks.

604. Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn, pub. 2005

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "One of St. Aubyn's significant strengths is an ability to condense character description into pithy aphorism.... He characterizes the 'man-in-a-crisis' very well, as he does the overly bright, almost telepathic children.... His attempt to find, via satire and Patrick's character, an approximation of personal liberation, bound by class and circumstance, results in a well paced and enjoyable {novel}."

Although the fourth book in the five-part Melrose novels, Mother's Milk can be read as a stand-alone novel. It takes place over four successive Augusts during the family's vacation and each section is narrated by a different character -- fiver-year-old Robert, Patrick, his wife Mary, and finally a third-person narrator.

The too-precocious Robert was a delightful narrator and draws the reader in immediately. I was a bit disappointed when Patrick's narration began. I did enjoy Patrick's thoughts on the dilemma how not to impose his upbringing and faults on his children. Mary's sardonic comments on Patrick's parenting (You've had the children for five minutes? yes, I can see how you must be exhausted and allowed to rest without disturbance) reminded me, luckily not too closely, of my brother's family -- the mother's "vacation" is taking full-care and responsibility for the children in a different location.

It is an enjoyable novel and some of the portrayals of various targets of satire were highly entertaining. I assume it is a sign of good writing when the reader becomes involved enough with the story that she wants to reach into the pages of the novel and give people a good hard shake.

Sounds great. I've added it to my wishlist at the library.

605. Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor, pub. 1976

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Blaming is a detached account of emotional rigidity, sympathetic yet unsparing in its portrait of the upper middle class.... 'Tragedy' seems too grandiose a term for a book so grounded in the mundane.... this is tragedy in its truest sense, a mesmerizing spiral of unintended consequences. While Taylor is an acute observer of social conventions in the early 1970s, the novel has a fluid, timeless quality that transcends its specific milieu."

Amy and Nick meet Martha while traveling around the Mediterranean, as the few English speaking members of the group they become circumstantial friends. When Nick dies on-board, Martha, spur of the moment, abandons her trip to assist the bereft Amy.

Under normal circumstances Amy and Martha would never have been friends -- Martha an effusive, young, poor American novelist and Amy and older, reserved British wife. Amy doesn't like Martha, but owes her a debt of gratitude and cannot refuse Martha's overtures of friendship. Amy tries to behave as politeness and decency demand, but it's possible her reluctant efforts cause Martha more harm than good.

Taylor's portrait of Amy is brilliant, showing both her peevishness and kind-hearted intentions. It is a touching portrayal. But the novel's "moral" did not quite hit the mark.

606. The Invention of Curried Sausage by Uwe Timm, pub. 1993.

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Timm packs in enough material for a work four times its length. It distills challenging subject matter -- the end of the second world war, adultery, Nazism -- to its emotional essence, the seemingly inconsequential, yet potent symbol of postwar German cultural integration -- the ubiquitous Currywurst."

The frame story has the narrator tracking down a woman he remembers from his childhood in Hamburg, because he believes she created Curried Sausage and was the first to sell it as street food and he is curious how the dish came about. Lena Bruckner, now an elderly woman in a nursing home, tells the narrator the long complicated story over a several visits.

In 1945 Hamburg, Germany, Lena Bruckner was a clever woman, able to concoct both opportunities and delightful dishes out of limited resources. A chance encounter leads to a month-long romance between herself and a deserting navel officer. The dissolution of the war, and their relationship, leads to a series of events and complicated negotiations that lead to, finally, the accidental creation of curried sausage.

It is a charming novella. i enjoyed the matter-of-fact presentation of post-war germany, which i know little about. But I suspect the story has more depth and meaning to someone with the cultural background only lightly touched upon here.

Congratulations Eliz, on reaching the 600, although you already left it behind you by 6 books! You make it seem possible to actually finish the list!

>153 Simone2: Thanks!

ETA: According to the spreadsheet, I only have 4 years of reading to go to finish all 1001 books!

607. Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner, pub. 1936

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "How does one tell the story of revolution, when writing in the early 1930s? Warner - not yet a communist - turns back to the year of revolutions, 1848, specifically to Paris.... Summer Will Show tells three stories: Sophia on the streets of radicalized Paris; Sophia in love with Minna, a subtle, almost impalpably sensitive lesbian romance and Sophia's gradual discovery of what it means to be a revolutionary."

It's been almost two weeks since I read this book and while I sort of have a sense of liking it, not much remains. There are lingering images of the fascinating Minna, of course. There is still a faint confusion of what exactly was happening -- I still have no idea what the 1848 revolution was about and am not sure I ever learned what it meant to Sophia to be a revolutionary. There is a horrible, lurid incident in Dorset that is as darkly haunting as the best moments in anything Poe wrote.

608. The Hive by Camilo José Cela, pub. 1951

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The title of The Hive refers to the teeming variety of Madrid, the great city where people looking to make life congregate, like bees in a hive. The novel has no subject or main character.... The structural connection of the episodes, told by "the narrator" with alleged objectivity, is rooted in the repetition of places and characters.... With a supreme command of language, Cela limits himself to relating the facts of a degraded reality, and thus he achieves a devastating statement."

At first I really loved this unusual novel. I loved seeing the same scene from so many different perspectives and seeing a major character in one episode reappearing as an extra in another. And once I realized the structure, I was tempted to go back and chart the characters - who was related to whom. But it quickly became overwhelming and after a couple hundred pages, tedious. Although some characters show up repeatedly, the entire story seems to take place in a short period of time, so there was no character development, no plot.

I would love to see this as a film, however. I think good actors could convey character and provide an emotional connection in a two minute scene. And a good director could tie all these moments together visually into a coherent whole in a way that even the best author cannot do with words alone.

609. A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore, pub. 2009, (added in the 2012 edition)

610. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, pub. 1957

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The book is a subtle examination of the ways in which revolutionary ideals can be compromised by the realities of political power.... The novel is driven by the struggle to achieve some kind of perfect truth, in both personal and political terms, but its pathos are found in the failure of this striving toward the ideal and in the extraordinary difficulty in remaining faithful to a personal, political, or poetic principle."

The edition I read proclaimed this novel to be "the greatest love story ever told!". It is not. And the expectation of such was a disservice to the novel. For me, the novel was a fascinating glimpse of a period in Russian history I know very little about. I enjoyed the depiction of the monotonous efforts to go on living in the midst of historically significant times and the journey to the Urals was beautifully described. In contrast, the love-story was underplayed. In fact, even 2/3 of the way into the novel, I wasn't sure if the great love interest was Tonya or Lara, as Zhivago clearly, compellingly loved both. Someone smarter than I said the true love story is Zhivago's love for Russia.

611. On the Edge of Reason by Miroslav Krleža, pub. 1938

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} delivers a brilliant critique of contemporary bourgeois society.... Erudite, picturesque, and with a keen eye for detail, Krleža's style has been described as baroque, rending his characters with great mastery, sensitivity, and imagination. On the Edge of Reason remains in the forefront of socially conscious and innovative literature comparable to that of Joyce, Zola, and Svevo."

The premise of this novel is a good one. One day at a dinner party, an unremarkable middle-class lawyer accidentally lets slip an honest opinion during a pause in conversation. The host, a powerful business magnet, is (understandably) insulted by the remark and demands an apology. Resulting from the narrator's refusal to bow to societies conventions of politeness and falseness is an increasingly harsh cascade of punishments and retributions.

However, this is an intellectual novel, a philosophical novel, told with little emotion or empathy. Perhaps the dissonance between the narrator's logic and his actions was supposed to be instructive, but mostly left me perplexed. The ideas are engaging, but I don't think I fully understood them.

612. Tent of Miracles by Jorge Amado, 1969

Why it is included in the 1001 list: With this novel, Jorge Amado, Brazil's greatest twentieth-century novelist, wrote his most ambitious political satire and also his greatest articulation if the complexity of Afro-Brazilian culture.

The novel moves between two time frames -- present day (late-1960s) and the lifetime of the main character, Pedro Archanjo 1868-1940ish. The present day story (and the delve into the past) is initiated by the arrival in Brazil of a Nobel Laureate who praises the writings of Pedro Archanjo. The media, taken by surprise, scrambles to unearth the story behind this unknown Brazilian writer. What they quickly discover is a complex individual. Pedro was a poor, self-taught anthropologist. He was also a poet, Carnival King, black rights activist, Candomblé worshiper, and womanizer. The satire derives from the contrast of the portrayal of Pedro by the media in his centennial year with the story of his life.

It is an interesting work and I enjoyed being immersed in a culture I know nothing about, but I never really felt invested in the story. There didn't seem to be a cohesive arc, just a meander through the life of an unusual character.

613. The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector, 1964

Why it is included in the 1001 list: ...the writing has the feel of a deeply personal internal monologue, encompassing questions and disquisitions on love and living =, and on the role of the past, and the future. Addressed to a personalized and mysteriously undefined 'you' this is a very intimate reading experience."

Clarice Lispector is a genius. And she thinks very differently than I do. This novella may be one of the most difficult books I have read. It is deeply philosophical - as it describes an existential/almost religious crisis. And it is repulsive as so much of the crisis revolves around a crushed cockroach. Then there is the usual syntax as the narrator tries to reconstruct herself with language, changing tenses mid-sentence and placing words not quite in the expected order. And then, every once in a while she says something I would have thought was inexpressible perfectly.

It is simply brilliant.

614. Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel, pub. 1985

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "These are the stories of people who cope in the little ways they know how, keeping themselves occupied with the tender and absurd details of living. The stories illustrate the intricate smokescreens of minutia hiding the current of grief that might swallow us up, if it were acknowledged. Fragile as the surface tension on water, so enthralling and so funny one almost overlooks the exquisite sadness."

I made the mistake of reading this collection in a hurry (library book was due) and after reading some of Flannery O'Connor's work. I think under different circumstances, I might have agreed with the 1001 books blurb. But I found them rather flat. The main event the stories focus on (mostly tragedies) is generally not mentioned; only hinted at obliquely. Instead of finding this intriguing, I was irritated -- I didn't understand the situation and therefore couldn't focus on the minutia described.

However, the collection I read also included her later work and I read a couple of those stories as well. She improved greatly, in my opinion, finding a better balance of how much story could be left out without baffling the reader.

615. Down There by Joris-Karl Huysmans, pub. 1891

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} handles the sensational topic of satanism with a light sardonic touch, while sparing the reader none of its horrors of vileness. The result is a multilayered work rich in imagination and humor, abstruse information and lurid detail."

I was hoping this would be a creepy get-ready-for-Autumn read, but it wasn't. The story is about an author that is writing a biography of Gilles de Rais, a notorious satanist. And while horrible events are described, they are told at a distance as the narrator discusses them with a friend and with very little suspense - its more of a factual retelling. For some reason, I had it stuck in my head that this was a Faustian story and I kept waiting for a particular turn of events to happen (they never did), so in a way I wasn't reading this book at all. Finally, I could only find this work online in a free translation, which I think was too stiff and impeded the story.

616. Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard, pub. 1984

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "A major strength of the book lies in the way we are drawn into a frightening closeness to Jim, a boy who is obviously being forced to mature beyond his years under circumstances of chronic degradation.... Empire of the Sun, a remarkably achieved work in its own right, also serves as a key to the preoccupations of the rest of Ballard's fiction."

It is a fascinating, horrifying story of Jim's incarceration in a Japanese concentration camp in Shanghai during WWII. In the chaos of the fall of Shanghai, Jim is separated from him parents and, at first, manages to fend for himself but eventually is reduced to a state of desperation that leads him to force the Japanese soldiers to capture him. He spends the rest of the war in various concentration camps in/near Shanghai.

Jim is obviously a very intelligent young boy with a restless, untameable energy and curiosity. His efforts to survive, to get enough eat, slowly warp any social morals he might have once had leaving a curious blend of purely selfish acts and seemingly altruistic acts that stem from knowing that many of the adults around him had to survive if he was to survive.

Not only is the plot compelling, but there is also a wonderful double-lens -- seeing the world from Jim's perspective, but also occasionally seeing how the world, the adults around him, see Jim.

617. Germinal by Émile Zola, pub. 1885

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Anyone interested in the intersection of literature and politics should know this famous explosive novel of class conflict and industrial unrest set in the coalfields of northern France in the 1860s.... {the narrator's} progression from neutral outsider to committed strike leader mobilizes a collective struggle, subtly presented in tandem with the contradictions and compromises of individual belief and aspiration."

Germinal is one of the best, most griping novels I have read this year. It is brilliantly constructed -- the protagonist, a poor unemployed young man with a bit of a temper shows up at a mining down, desperate for food and a little money. As an outsider, Zola uses his reaction to the conditions of the mine and the town to demonstrate both the awful reality and the horrifying acceptance of the reality by the third and fourth generation miners. And Etienne's slow transformation into communism and strike leader is the perfect arc to involve the naive reader, without requiring excessive back-story or long diatribes. The different attitudes and philosophies are demonstrated quite naturally by different characters in pub debates and private conversations. Finally, the long struggle is masterfully paced, with many little climaxes for each phase of the struggle, each building to the finale. It is so perfectly suited for a television series that i am shocked it has not yet been done more recently than 1970.

Zola's realism was (wrongly!) derided in La-Bas (book 615 above). I much preferred this plot-driven novel to the artifice of Huysmans' decadent novels!

618. Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson, pub. 1927

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Tarka is notable for its lack of anthropomorphic identification and its meticulous, sometimes pedantic, depictions of pastoral life through the eyes of a wild animal. Williamson's great strength in this book is the alienation of Tarka, who is, and always remains, feral. This refusal to succumb to personalization...makes Tarka the Otter stand apart from its successors."

At first, Tarka is the only creature given a name, but about half-way through as Tarka matures, others are named as well, as it is impossible to completely avoid humanizing the story. A charming, quick read with beautiful descriptions of English countryside.

619. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, pub. 1895

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} is the angriest and most experimental of Hardy's novels, preoccupied with themes of desire and displacement.... Interwoven with despair, resentment, anger, and pride is a sense of exile all the more painful for being inarticulate."

I should not have read this book so close on the heels of Germinal. I just could not appreciate what Hardy may have been attempting, as his characters and plotting paled in comparison. The portrayal of Arabella was maddening. It completely lacked nuance and was such a chauvinistic male portrayal of a conniving witch. And then there was poor confused Sue, seen only through Jude's eyes for the first several hundred pages, she was never more than a will-o'-the-wisp. Her personality flickered on and off, her ideas flitting from one and than to its opposite, always in the distance, never quite real. The tragic event was shocking and unexpected, like they are in life, but the overall tragedy wasn't tragic. There was no hope for averting a bad outcome because the characters didn't have enough character to act any other way.

620. Paradise of the Blind by Dương Thu Hương, pub. 1988

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Lovingly detailed yet excruciating in its painful honesty, Paradise of the Blind brings a sensual intensity to the daily life of rural Vietnam and the harsh routines of the city fringes.... Hương digs deep below the picture postcard images...into a country of old religions, ancient hatreds, and huge transitions. This is a novel of wonderful, elegiac power that delivers powerful insights into a changing Vietnam."

Since most of what I know of Vietnam is derived form movies and novels focused on the war, it was a pleasant surprise that this little novel didn't touch upon it at all. Rather, it focused on personal, familial conflict exacerbated by the shifts in power and society constructs as Communism solidifies its grip on the country. Given the events in the story, I should have been much more emotionally involved. But the story is framed by the narrator's train journey to see her uncle and the bulk of the story is told as drowsy, incomplete memories. The narrator, Hang, did not seem emotionally involved in her own story, telling it at a distance that made empathy difficult. The most compelling parts of the book were the descriptions of the various feasts and meals.

621. Monkey: Journey to the West by Wu Ch'eng-en, pub. 1592

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Monkey is an abridged translation of the popular Chinese folk novel A Journey to the West. Based on traditional folktales, with its background in Chinese popular religion, mythology, and philosophy--Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism--it became one of the four classical novels of Chinese literature.... The book is unique in its combination of adventure, comedy, poetry, and spiritual insight.... it is thought to be at once an allegory for a spiritual journey toward enlightenment and a satire on inefficient and absurd bureaucracy."

First I should thank puckers for the advice on which version to read. I had been eying the Waley abridgement for a while and then found it on sale a few months back.

The abridgement is good fun. I can only describe it as China's 16th century looney-tunes. All the stories have the same pattern as they center around a mischievous, ill-mannered creature that outsmarts everyone. And, of course, there is some silly violence. I was interested in how irreverent the novel can be--as an allegory for spiritual enlightenment it does not seem to take religion very seriously. Monkey's actions and desire for enlightenment seem selfish, more of a desire to be superior to others than a desire to be better person. So, while I can see how more episodes of the same could be rather tedious, I am not sure this abridgement does the full story justice. I seems to convey more of the satire and absurdity than the spiritual journey.

622. Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys, pub. 1939

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The fragmented narrative slip's between the narrator's past and present in exploring the paradoxical limitations of the life of a woman who has sought to free herself from convention."

I enjoyed this novel much more than her Wide Sargasso Sea. Set in Paris many years after WWI, the novel describes the unhappy existence of a no-longer-young woman that is struggling to find meaning in her life and her place in the world. I enjoy her writing and the occasional turn of phrase that so exactly captures an experience that I've had. But, the non-linearity is harder to follow than it should be. The narrator remembers a painful event, but shies away from from it, which leaves the reader unsure of what happened.

623. Cause for Alarm by Eric Ambler, pub. 1938

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Eric Ambler reinvented the British thriller.... {It} is the extremely exciting story of an innocent abroad who finds that his innocence is a kind of culpability, of a man who is forced to recalibrate his loyalties to his employers, to his country, to science, and to the world at large."

I do agree that it was an exciting story and kept me awake well after bedtime to find out what happened. It is also hints at an intriguing portrait of pre-WWII Italy society.

624. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy, pub.1935

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Overlooked at the time of its initial publication, {it} was critically rehabilitated by the Parisian noirist Marcel Duhamel, who favorably compares McCoy to Hemingway.... In the guise of the dance marathon...McCoy found the perfect metaphor for life's randomness, absurdity, and meaningless."

For some reason, I have been attracted to this novella's title, reading it in a plaintive voice, perhaps that of a young girl. So, the story itself was unexpected. It is set in Depression era L.A. Two wannabe actors meet by chance and the woman convinces the man to be her partner in a dance marathon. It is a (to me) preposterous situation, but all the same quite fascinating. The world is narrowed to this one room and interactions are influenced by the bizarre rules. The depiction of the stress of the contest and the abnormality that results of attempting to stay in motion continuously for 50 minutes of every hour with only brief breaks for meals, and sleep only gotten in 5-10 minute snatches, is utterly fascinating. The "events" that happen at the fringes, outside the marathon participants seemed a little forced and odd. There is one moment of beautiful writing -- the male narrator blissfully turning his face into the sun, that he only sees for a brief time every afternoon -- that will stay with me. In the end, I realize the title should not sound plaintive at all, but rather matter-of-fact, with a hint of challenge.

That book made me wonder if there are any good books about reality tv shows yet (I know a couple that touch them for a subplot's worth but not yet one that is wholly about one). Except the scifi ones that predict those, of course.

>173 hdcclassic: I don't know if it's good, but weirdly enough a friend and former co-worker has written a YA book about a reality TV show: For Real

625. Typical by Padgett Powell, pub. 1991

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "One of the most inventive writers to emerge in New Southern Writing Padgett Powell takes the reader on a stylistic tour de force. The voice of America is the true subject of these stories, in particular the language of the South.... That such technical acrobatics manage to rise above mere novelty to create sublime explorations of self-knowledge without regret is testament to Powell's genius.

Powell's writing in these stories is unique - I have not read anything quite like it. They are so surreal, yet too realistic to be surreal and to absurd to be realistic. For some reason, I did not care for these stories. Perhaps one needs a particular appreciation of irony or the right sort of offbeat humor. Maybe one has to have spent time in the South to appreciate the language. Whatever it is, I don't have it. I found it a struggle to read more than a few pages at a time. It felt like the stories had been written over a period of years and that the writing style matured. And there is one short story, only three or four pages long, that I found absolutely brilliant: "Wait". I'm not even going to summarize it as I think it is best to read when wholly unprepared for it. The collection is worth dipping in and out of, if only for the unique style.

626. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, pub. 1866

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} revives the literary tradition of the descent into hell, completely renewed in the form of science fiction.... With extraordinary imaginativeness, the novel...takes place in a Gruyere-like cold earth, where volcanoes and the sea are linked by a series of channels."

This was quite a fun, quick read. I wish I had an annotated edition that discussed the the theories of Verne's day and explained which, if any, geological bits he got right. Like most of Verne's work, the characterization is not well-done, as the characters primarily were created to put forward contradictory theories. In this novel, the narrator is a young man, who at first is a "voice of reason", explaining to his absent-minded professor uncle why the journey is impossible. The pair, when finally reaching Iceland and the beginning of the real journey are offset by their guide, a taciturn, miraculous man that is incapable of defeat of exhaustion. The first section of the book, the ones that seem most plausible today were the most enjoyable. The initial descent and early exploration of the Earth's bowels reminded me faintly of Germinal. But the last, completely outlandish section was harder to enjoy.

I have forgotten where and who mentioned this on LT, but it did take a while to track down a "correct" translation. Apparently, the most popular English version is abridged, with some sections re-written. It can be distinguished by the narrator's names -- if the story is told by Henry or Harry, run away. Only Axel knows the true Journey.

627. Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope, pub. 1869

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The Palliser series analyses the lives and loves of government ministers and their families, set against the backdrop of parlimentary intrigue and real-life politicians.... Trollope's interest lies not in political philosophy but rather than in psychology, and in what makes Victorian people 'tick'. His penetrating insights are on display here."

This novel is almost a complete contrast to Verne, although written only a few years later. It is very much centered on creating a complete, fully-realized person and politics and political philosophy are used to demonstrate character (rather than using characters to demonstrate theories).

While this novel is a wonderful example of Trollope's abilities, I can't help but wonder why this novel was chosen out of all his works. Phineas may be the epitome of Trollope's characters -- an agreeable, well-mannered man that dilly-dallies -- but 700 pages is too long to spend with a single character. Certainly there are other individuals portrayed and a couple of other minor sub-plots, but even when we see the world through their eyes we are primarily seeing their reaction to, or thoughts about, Phineas. And by the end I just couldn't bear to read about yet another woman he was "in love" with because, as far as I could tell, she happened to be the woman standing in front of him. On the other hand, the portrayal of England and the parliamentary politics was utterly fascinating. I still have no idea how it works, but I certainly enjoyed watching Phineas learn the system and become adept at maneuvering in it.

628. Man's Fate by Andre Malraux, pub. 1933

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Man's Fate {is}, in essence, an intellectual version of a boy's action-adventure story. It is hardly the profound examination of the human condition that Malraux intended, but, packed with dramatic incident and powerfully evoked detail, it remains a highly readable and informative period piece."

Set in 1927 Shanghai, this story of a failed communist revolution intertwines the stories of several different characters, each embodying a different approach to life and revolution. The opening scene is quite powerful and somewhat Poe-like. But, unfortunately, it set up expectations that the rest of the piece could not live up to.

629. The Forbidden Realm by Jan Jacob Slauerhoff, pub. 1932

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Innovative in technique and original in its imaginative conception, The Forbidden Realm dramatizes the author's uncomfortable relationship with himself and the ate imperialist world.... {It is} one of the novels of the agony of colonialism, the disintegration of European self-confidence and morals in an alien environment. But it's a disintegration that Slauerhoff embraces rather than deplores."

This was an odd, hallucinatory book. A disaffected man leaves Europe and his life behind, engaged as a wireless radio operator for a shipping company. On one of his voyages, he is shipwrecked off the coast of Macau. His life strangely parallels the life of the 15th Century Portuguese poet, Luís Vaz de Camões. The two story lines fade in and out of each other, often blurring the distinction between them.

630. Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau, pub. 1929

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} is a claustrophobic tale of love and attraction transformed into jealousy and malice, a comment on the potentially destructive and unstable nature of human relationships that was written in the wake of discoveries about the unconscious inaugurated by Freud and others. The book can also be read as a child's nightmare.... {Paul and Elisabeth} are simultaneously tragic figures who stand for the fate of humanity and irritating immature youths whose behavior is comic and ridiculous."

This novel centers on Elisabeth and Paul, siblings that by circumstances and design have isolated themselves from the world. Elisabeth, the older sibling, cares for their bedridden mother. One day, a classmate, with whom Paul is infatuated, hits the delicate Paul with a stone-embedded snowball. The injury sends Paul to his sickbed to also be cared for by Elisabeth. Gerard, another of Paul's former schoolmates, is fascinated by the siblings and while visiting Paul is soon drawn into their orbit. Lastly, there is the damaged, orphaned Agatha, befriended by Elisabeth and brought into the sibling's world due to her resemblance to the school-boy Paul adores. These four, increasingly isolated and solely dependent on each other, spiral ever-deeper into "the game" with disastrous results.

It was not a pleasant read and very little in the character's circumstances or inner world was relatable to me. It may have been well-written, but I was too uninterested to notice.

631. Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, pub. 1928

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The appeal in the book...lies not in its plot, but in its relentless and caustic wit, and the biting satire it aims at swathes of British society.... From the vicissitudes of modern architecture to the morel turpitude of the upper classes, Waugh casts satirical barbs with ruthless accuracy. Although a sense of hopelessness seems to underlie these critiques, it is impossible to criticize the direction of the moral compass of this novel, which remains unremittingly superb in its comic intensity."

Poor Paul Pennyfeather a student at Oxford is "sent down" when as a hapless victim of a prank, he inadvertently violates university rules. Forced to make his own way in the world, he lands a job at an obscure school in Wales. He soon becomes infatuated with the wealthy mother of one of the pupils and the precocious child attempts to arrange matters to his liking, but fate has a few more surprises in store....

I enjoyed this more than the other Waugh novel I read, but still my cultural knowledge of the 1920s British society that is being lampooned is not strong enough to make this a fantastic read. It is just good fun.

632. The Enormous Room by e. e. cummings, pub. 1922

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "cummings celebrates the oddity and sheer peculiarity of his fellow detainees.... Against these individuals...stands (in irony) 'the inexorable justice of le gouvernement français'. This classic anarchist structure sets individuals against all authority. cummings asserts the value of a new modernist art which will require 'that vast and painful process of Unthinking which at result in a minute bit of purely personal Feeling. Which minute bit is Art.' For the rest of his life, a more focused cummings was to remain in his art an instinctive anarchist."

An autobiographical novel, it details the author's time spent in a French prison during WWI. Using some of his trademark unusual syntax, it could be lyrical at times. But overall, I was not amused by the sketches of the other prisoners and details of daily life.

633. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis, pub. 1920

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} presents a searing portrait of small-town America. the premier satirist of his day, Lewis delivers a scathing social commentary that also becomes, through the story of Carol, an urgent humanist manifesto that cries out for changes in the American way of life.... Lewis's prose is by turns caustic and emotionally charged, making the novel at once funny and extremely serious. Main Street demonstrates Lewis's power as an important chronicler of American society in the early twentieth century."

Carol, a recent college graduate, is a dreamer. She wants to make the world a better, more beautiful place. Will, an older, small-town doctor, wins her over with his love of his small town, the people, and how Carol with her charm and culture would improve the town. Once married, Carol is confronted with the small town's conventionality and struggles to fit in and remain herself.

An extraordinarily written novel, it is like vanilla ice-cream -- it may be the most amazing vanilla ice cream I've ever had, but I prefer mocha-almond-fudge.

634. Eva Trout by Elizabeth Bowen, pub. 1968

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "It shares with her earlier great works the brilliantly funny and disquieting incisiveness of her descriptions of people and places, feelings and ideas, love and loss, but it moves out to weird new depths.... A sense of anarchic possibility affects everything, including Bowen's syntax: you often can hardly guess where or how a sentence going to land. There is a profound impression of of diffusion and seeking new, multiple channels of feeling and communication."

DO NOT READ THE 1001 BOOK DESCRIPTION OF THIS NOVEL BEFORE READING IT. IT BLATANTLY STATES THE DRAMATIC, SURPRISE ENDING

This is the fascinating, frustrating last novel published by Elizabeth Bowen. Eva is a woman that has had an unorthodox upbringing -- her financial genius father carted her around the world on his business ventures leaving her to various nannies/hotel staff. Now an adult on the brink of inheriting a vast fortune she is staying with a former teacher, one of the few people in her childhood that took an interest in her. But Eva, ignorant of social conventions, is a disruptive force -- everywhere setting unintended events in motion. Bowen masterfully uses language to create Eva and depict her world as unconventionally as the character is herself. Nothing is said in a straightforward manner -- both the syntax and the context remain elusive.

635. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy by Laurence Sterne, pub. 1768

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Sterne's shorter novel is a comic gem. Combining autobiographical anecdote,incidental fiction, and pastiche of travel writing, the book chronicles the journey of Yorick and his servant La Fleur. The principle pleasure of this novel is its playful manipulation of conversational intimacy. The manner of telling takes priority, while the author-narrator leaves different incidents suspended between sentimental interpretations and a more knowing realism."

While a very slim volume, this is not that quick of a read. The protagonist loses the high ground in a heated discussion, because he couldn't back his claims on personal authority. So, spur of the moment, he decides to travel the continent in order to gain personal insight to other countries. The book is composed of a series of episodes relayed with comic exaggeration with some digressions to other anecdotes, as the narrator is a single, traveler in foreign countries and he does get into a few scrapes. This was the last novel written by Sterne and although it was published in his lifetime, it ends abruptly, in the middle of a joke. An odd little book, it is probably funnier than I found it to be.

636. Love In Excess by Eliza Haywood, pub. 1719

Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Along with Robinson Crusoe, Love in Excess as one of the most popular early eighteenth-century novels. Haywood's frank treatment of desire and sexual passion renders her a key figure in the feminine tradition of amatory fiction that runs from Aphra Behn to Delarivier Manley and beyond."

What a delightful, unique novel! The novel is comprised of three sections, which are almost complete stories. In the first part, the protagonist Alovisa falls in love with the charming D'Elmont. As a woman in 18th century Paris, social etiquette forbids her from indicating her interest (until after he proposes!). So Alovisa sends him an anonymous flirtatious note. At the next ball D'Elmont, meets and begins to court Amena. With the help of devious servants and unfortunate circumstances, eventually D'Elmont is convinced to marry. In the second part, D'Elmont, now married, falls hopelessly in love with a young women of whom he is a legal guardian. His marriage quickly become an unhappy one with a jealous wife maneuvering to discover her rival and the husband plotting his seduction. Hijinks ensue, resulting in tragedy for all concerned. In the final section, D'Elmont is in Italy, where once again several woman fall madly in love with him and even more unlikely events unfold.

While the plots are operatic in scope and almost laugh-out-loud ridiculous, many of the female characters were developed into something more than stereotyped temptresses and convent girls (although some were caricatures designed to move the convoluted plots forward). For some reason, I expected the novel to be Alovisa's story and so it felt quite disjointed in the reading. The other major drawback is the complete lack of chapters or line-breaks, making it hard to read in short sessions as it was difficult to pick up the story line again. Other than those minor complaints, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

I have finally caught up on 2014s reads. So I can start posting the current years reads, with new formatting! Yay!

637. The Human Stain by Philip Roth, pub. 2000 (1/1/15)



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "While The Human Stain questions the possibility of objectivity in a world of emotions, the book is primarily about guilty secrets, assumptions, and perceptions.... It is a sly glance at American social politics, replete with judgement, shame, and hypocrisy, and at the stain left on life by humanity itself. At the end it is a book that, although ostensibly about the black and white of things, is inherently a thousand shades of gray."

Coleman Silk at the age of 71 retired in disgrace from the college of which he had long been a professor and a dean. A rigid, commanding authority figure, that aggressively restructured the college, Silk was not beloved among the faculty. So when a student accuses him of racism, Silk finds little support. Instead of calmly stating his case and allowing the incident to blow over, Silk resigns, preferring to belligerently defend his reputation. The novel begins with an unnamed narrator (much later identified as Zuckerman) describing Silk's appearance at his wooded retreat demanding the novelist write his story. Thus begins an unlikely friendship. The novelist is told the story of Coleman's disgrace and witnesses how he is able to find freedom and a semblance of peace in an affair with a 34-year-old janitor with a tragic past of her own.

I found it to be a fascinating novel about identity and how one's self-creation and perception so frequently differs from how others see us. In response to an anonymous note sent to Silk, about his affair, that begin with "Everyone knows", Zuckerman muses on the impossibility of knowing:

" 'Everyone knows' is the invocation of the cliche and the banalization of experience, and it's the solemnity and the sense of authority that people have in voicing the cliché that's so insufferable. What we know is that, in an unclichéd way, nobody knows anything. You _can't_ know anything. The things you _know_ you don't know. Intention? Motive? Consequence? Meaning? All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing."

Roth is an excellent writer and while I found the book to be enthralling, I was a little disappointed in the smugness with which the author conveys Daphne's thoughts. And my other overarching thought of the is book is that there are so. many. words.

638. A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov, pub. 1840 (1/17/15)



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "A collection of five tales connected by an intricate narrative structure centering on one protagonist, this work simultaneously exemplifies two recurrent themes of Russian nineteenth century literature -- the Caucasian adventure story and the 'superfluous' anti-hero."

An unnamed officer traveling in the Caucasus mountains strikes up a conversation with a fellow travler, Captain Maxim Maximovich. When bad weather interrupts their journey, Maxim narrates the first tale about his friend Pechorin and Bela, a beautiful Circassian woman Pechorin loved and lost. The second tale is of Maxim Maximovich's brief reunion with Pechorin. The third tale is told through Pechorin's diary, given to the unnamed narrator by Maxim Maximovich. It detail a strange encounter with a near-mythical creature in Taman, a sea town. We next see Pechorin in a spa town, where in a fit of devilish boredom (and a story-telling reminiscent of a cross between Austen's Bath and Les Liaisons Dangereuses), he courts a young Princess to spite a friend while also renewing an acquaintance with a former lover. Finally, there is a short tale about a bet made on whether one's death is predestined or can be chosen at will.

I appreciated the structure, finding the frame story with it's nested stories charming and the individual tales are captivating. But the transitions between them are sometimes abrupt and the very last story it isn't clear who is narrating until the final few pages. For this novel, I think I lost the big picture due to the focus on the individual pieces. I still can't seem to make a coherent whole out of it (thus the clunky summary above). But in attempting to sort it out, I did learn something new:

According to wiki, the superfluous man is a Russian variation on a Byronic hero and is a fairly common figure in Russian novels of this time.

639. The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa, pub. 1962 (1/24/15)



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "This novel...dazzles with the scale of its experimentation with form and the risks it takes in tackling the dissection of a contemporary society. The story...uses the author's own experience, but it transcends autobiography through the profound assimilation of literary models (Flaubert, Faulkner, and Sartre) and a rigorous construction based on fragmentation and a multiplicity of narrative voices."

The plot is vaguely familiar -- a bunch of boys in a military academy whose cruelty to one another results in tragedy. But this version is ore extreme than most. There are brutal initiations involving beating, being pissed on, and forced to fight each as dogs. There are daily punishments for whoever is last in line in formation and for any minor infraction of the rules. The usual cruel teasing of the "weaker" boys brought to vicious levels. There is a ring leader in charge of stealing exams and selling the answers, selling the forbidden cigarettes, alcohol, etc. And then there is a student, so desperate to get out on a pass that he tattles and meets the most brutal punishment the ring leader can devise.

This was a much more difficult book than I was expecting. I don't recall Vargas Llosa's other books being so hard to follow. This felt quite similar to Garcia Marquez's work -- much of it is written in stream-of-conscious style with multiple narrators. I think there were two or three boys that were the primary narrators, mixing school life with memories of home. Each has a school nickname - the slave, the poet, the jaguar - but these do not seem to be connected to their real names and their memories of life before the academy (I don't know if this was intentional or if I just missed the connections). I am still uncertain of the basic story-lines of the individual characters. Again, I am not sure if this is intentional.

The second half of the book is where Vargas Llosa's brilliance becomes apparent. The inner voices of the main characters as they meditate on the climatic act and it's repercussions (or lack thereof) is astonishing. It is here that the self-serving bureaucracy and the pitiless morals of the bourgeois are exposed. It is a fascinating book, but one that might be better served by reading a plot summary first.

Did you deliberately read two "hero time" books back to back? Any other pairings in mind?

>191 StevenTX: Accidentally on purpose. I put together a short list of books that met a particular challenge task and when I saw the two books with the similar title, I had to read them one after the other. I don't have any other title pairings in mind (I've already read Deep River and Deep Rivers, not in close proximity, alas).

640. Hyperion by Friedrich Hölderlin, pub. 1799 (1/31/15)



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The novel works on several levels as a fictional reflection on, and interpretation of, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. On the philosophical level, it can be interpreted as an investigation into the separation between subject and object, between individual and individual, man and nature, as a condition of their unity. On the political level, it expresses the ambivalence toward reason and revolutionary force as possible instruments of social and historical progress -- elements that still exist in various twentieth century forms."

I'm afraid I did not find any of the several levels mentioned above. I did, however, find the most extensive use of exclamation points I have seen outside of a pre-teen's diary. I might have found some of the thoughts expressed in Hyperion's letters beautiful if I wasn't so irritated by the constant "What! I cried,...." "Dear youth! he cried;...." "O it is bitter, I cried...."

The most enjoyable aspect was the physical book -- a lovely edition published by a smallish Brooklyn press.

five tales connected by an intricate narrative structure

Hi Eliz,

Assuming you read the edition shown by its cover (I read the same, in December), this idea was put forward by Vladimir Nabokov in his preface to that edition of A Hero of Our Time. Although his parallel with the poem is very convincing, I struggled to accept that narrative structure for the book as a whole.

I think A Hero of Our Time is easier to read and understand if the five parts are seen as interconnected, but relatively independent tales or short stories in a collection, in which plot is much less important than character.

My inability to make sense of the structure led to an even lower appreciation of the book, but, on the whole, it seems I feel quite the same about A Hero of Our Time as you do.

I leave it to others to decide whether it is a worthy inclusion on the 1001 list.

>194 edwinbcn: Thank you for your comments!

I always forget to read the forward after finishing a book (too eager to start the next!) I suspect you're right -- that it's best to treat these as individual stories -- but the first few are so well-framed, this naive reader expected the last few to also be well-connected. It's definitely enjoyable, though!

641. As If I Am Not There (aka S.: A Novel about the Balkans) by Slavenka Drakulic, pub. 1999 (finished 2/08/15)



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The Croatian Journalist Slavenka Drakulic is one of the most insightful evenhanded observers of recent Balkan history.... Told in sparse, unflinching detail, without recourse to literary tricks, this is a haunting novel. Simply narrated but morally complex...{it} avoids offering simplistic conclusions."

Mostly set in the Balkans, it is a story of one women's experiences of the attempted ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs.

The crystal language of the opening chapter drew me in immediately, but strangely enough the same language also held me at a distance one the story transitions to the woman's camp. In abstract the events of the novel are horrific but the narrator's coping mechanism is to be not there, so there is a detachment in the story. At least, having never experienced even the mildest form of the traumas described, it didn't affect me as I think it should have -- the experiences were alien to myself (and to the narrator as well, as if they didn't happen to her). Oddly it was an event at the end of the novel, after the narrator escaped to Sweden, that angered me the most.

As a side note, the style of writing, the almost matter-of-factness feels similar to This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. Perhaps it is an inherent coping mechanism -- one must keep an emotional distance in recounting horrors to maintain one's sanity.

642. The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore, pub. 1916 (finished 2/16/15)



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Originally written in Bengali and composed as three first-person narratives, the novel creates an objective account of differing political ideals and a marriage under threat. {It} is a meditation on the invasion of the private sphere by the public and political world."

I was mostly interested in the narrative of Bimala (the wife). Her component of the novel is told in uncomplicated sentences and is most rooted in the concrete world. Her secluded life and reaction to Sandeep's charm was very relatable. Nikhil, the husband, was voiced with more complexity. By turns idealistic and philosophic, his rationally progressive views are most likely the representation of the author's views. And then there is Sandeep, a suave, intellectual bulls--t artist. Easily able to charm Bimala and with an abundance of words, if not out-argue Nikhil, to at least subdue him. Caught up in and encouraging the home-rule movement, Sandeep manipulates those around him to disastrous results.

This turned out to be an odd companion piece for The Brothers Karamazov, which I am also reading -- the political and philosophical discussions between Nikhail and Sandeep were an intriguing counterpart to the religious debates between the Russian brothers.

I have picked up, but never read much into The Home and the World over the past three years. Your review clarifies the title very well. Thanks for the review.

643. What Maisie Knew by Henry James, narrated by Lorna Raver, pub. 1897 (finished 2/21/15)



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Maisie's clarity of perception, uncluttered by the preoccupations of the grown-ups she is watching, and James' supple articulation of what she sees, provide a rich account of the fall out of an unhappy marriage."

The novel opens with an explanation of the divorce settlement of Maisie's parents and a description of how she came to be used as a pawn in her parents bitter fight -- each trying to stain the reputation of the other as an unfit parent. But it is decided that she will divide her time equally between the two. And in turn of the century England, this in reality means spending tim with the caregivers hired by her respective parents. As the months pass she is shuttled back and forth with variations on her situation as each change of residence seems to encounter a change in the domestic arrangements of her parents as they each remarry and take on admirers. It is quite astounding how many different domestic arrangements and caregiver combinations James manages to concoct! It is an interesting glimpse into a time and lifestyle of which I am unfamiliar.

James' language generally doesn't agree with me, but in this novel narrated by a young child with more simplistic sentence structure and much less ornate description, it is easier to see his gift as a storyteller. The frequent and repetitive use of "Maisie knew", especially in audio, has a sermon-like ritual quality to it. Even though this may be one of James' simpler novels, what Maisie knew was not clearly conveyed to this reader (it may have been easier to follow in paper). I was not overly fond of this novel.

644. (removed 2008) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, pub. 1880 (finished 2/26/15)

Reviewed in my 2015 Club Read thread (click the picture to read the review):

645. Silas Marner by George Eliot, narrated by Wanda McCaddon/Nadia may, pub. 1861 (finished 3/15/15)



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} weave elements of fairy tale and traditional ballad into an exploration of the meaning of the family and the nature of belonging.... the novel profoundly reworks the 'family romance' that underpins so much English fiction, in which the child discovers noble origins and a 'true self'.... Community takes the place of individual aspiration, and for all its static, pastoral quality, Silas Marner is a moving exploration of how social selves are made."

Silas Marner was perfectly content in his life as a weaver in a small northern town with a good friend as a neighbor and his wedding to look forward to when calamity strikes -- he is accused of a theft. Broken-hearted, he leaves the town and settles in the south. As an outsider, he lives a solitary life earning a meager living with his weaving. Without much in the way of social interaction, he soon grows to love them money he earns above all else, hoarding and counting his coins. Then, a second disaster -- his money is stolen. The townfolk take in interest in the mystery and the weaver and he slowing forms some ties to the community. Then on new year's eve, a young opium addict dies in the snow not far from Silas' house and her young child attracted by the light wanders in and falls asleep on the hearth. Silas, finding her arrival as mysterious as his gold's disappearance, accepts her as his own and raises her, with the help of the community. But, the young girl is after all someone's daughter and eventually a choice will have to be made.

For the most part this was a delightful story to listen to, although I suspect I would have understood more of the nuances had I read a paper copy instead. In audio, I wasn't paying enough attention so the jump between Silas' story and that of the squire's son didn't make sense at first. I may also have missed the early broad hints of the secret that would have helped me better understand the actions of various characters. I was mostly charmed as the story ended as I thought it should end.

#645, gosh! This sounds like a wonderful book that I would really like. I read it when I was a teenager and remember nothing about it, so it may be one of the 1001-ers that I actually reread.

>202 annamorphic: Also, it's relatively short! The audiobook is ~7 hours and quite well done.

646. Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola, pub. 1867 (finished 3/27/15)



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Zola chose two 'specimens' to enact his theories about sexual desire and remorse. But {they} are so heavily invested with the responsibility of embodying Zola's mechanical determinism that they become strange, tortured creatures. The result is a novel seemingly divided against itself, a wonderful amalgam of wild eroticism and meticulous detachment."

Mme. Raquin, long a widower, lives for her sickly son. She is a kindly, well-meaning woman, taking in her niece after her mother's death. Thérèse grew up in the constant presence of the sick room -- never allowed to laugh or play for fear of disturbing her cousin, learning to suppress her impulses and emotions. But Mme. Raquin's great care is a success and sickly Camile reaches adulthood and acquires enough will to insist on living in Paris. Mme. Raquin is devastated until she devises a plan to move the whole family and overwhelmed by Paris, buys the first shop in an out-of-way street that she finds.

So the novel begins with an evocative description of the dank, dreary shop and street where the characters lead mundane lives of quiet, not-quite-poverty. The Raquin's live a dull, monotonous life. Camille goes off to work as a clerk in a shipping company, the women tend the shop and take care of the house. Every Thursday their few friends gather for dinner and dominoes where they repeat the same stories and tell the same jokes with the same level of merriment. One evening Camille encounters a childhood acquaintance and brings him home for dinner. Laurent, also a clerk, is living a bachelor life and enjoys a free meal and the motherly attentions of Mme. Raquin. But Laurent is also a bit of a rake and he brings an energy and life into their dull rooms with devastating consequences.

The first half of the novel, framing the tedium of lower-class life and detailing Thérèse's constrained childhood is brilliant. It is the second half of the book after the crime that is problematic. Zola claims this book as a scientific work, a study of temperament and physiology -- placing two people of opposite temperament in extreme circumstances and describing the consequences. Unfortunately, both the novel and psychology have evolved far beyond the construct of "temperaments" and Zola's manipulation of his characters includes what today we assume is their interior thoughts. So, even though Zola thought he was writing about the basest of physical beasts, without souls, it seems to be written as if the characters are driven psychologically, rather than physically. Therefore, this novel appears to be a terrible example of the psychology of remorse and guilt. This is not Zola's best work. Nonetheless Zola's mediocre work is better than many authors' best work.

647. (finished 3/28/15) Garden, Ashes by Danilo Kiš, pub. 1965



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{It} is a remarkable portrayal of a middle-class family during the Second World War.... The narrative contains such intense and powerful evocations of childhood that often the story seems to slip into lyrical verse.... {it} is a poignant story about a family living on the periphery of war and a child's attempt to understand the world around him and to cope with the loss of his father."

This slim volume is a stunning, difficult read. The narrator's dreamy recollections flow into one another, with only the vaguest outlines of a plot. I found it to be very reminiscent of Swann's Way -- both are framed by an adult narrator recollecting childhood memories in a hazy, comforting fashion, describing mood and senses rather than events and actions, and analyzing the process of memory. For example:

"Since childhood, I was afflicted with a sick hypersensitivity, and my imagination quickly turned everything into a memory, too quickly: sometimes one day was enough, or an interval of hours, or a routine change of place, for an everyday event with a lyrical value that I did not sense at the time, to become suddenly adorned with a radiant echo, the echo ordinarily reserved only for those memories which have been standing for many years in the powerful fixative of lyrical oblivion."

It is not a novel that can easily be read for plot. It is a novel that would be enhanced by knowing the author's history and the basic "facts" of the story prior to reading it. If you are fortunate enough to find an edition with introductory matter, I recommend reading it before reading the novel. I don't think the story can be "spoiled" and having a context for the memories should only enhance the hidden emotion that is only portrayed by subtle, seemingly inconsequential descriptions.

Garden, Ashes is sitting on my shelf, I'll get to it in coming months...the edition I have doesn't have any introduction but I know a bit of the writer and I have read the first part of the loose triptych this is the second part...

>206 hdcanis: I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

648. (finished 4/5/15) Half of Man Is Woman by Xianliang Zhang, pub. 1985



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Largely an autobiographical novel, and one of the few Chinese novels of the 1980s that has also won critical attention and commercial success outside of China.... Published at a time of political thaw during the mid-1980s, the book indicts a political system that has rendered parts of its population mentally and physically impotent."

The novel takes place roughly from 1966-1976 in a Labor Reform Camp and State Farms in the provence of Ningxia, during the time when the rest of the country was undergoing the Cultural Revolution. Zhang has already been in labor camps for a dozen year at the start of the novel. Returning from work in the rice paddies, he accidentally spies on a woman prisoner bathing. The moment stuns Zhang -- he has never known a woman. Although the moment is brief and there is little chance to exchange words, it haunts him.

Eight years later, Zhang re-encounters the woman in a State Farm. After an awkward courtship and insistent help from fellow prisoners, the two marry. At first, the marriage seems to go well. Zhang is pleased with his wife's home-making efforts and enjoys being fed and cared for. But the rumors and hints at the political unrest outside trouble him and he realizes that he and his wife want very different things. She wants some measure of financial security, love, and protection, while he prizes his concept of personal integrity more than physical comfort. Then there is Zhang's inexperience in relationships, combined with his inculcated powerlessness which render him impotent and subject to ridicule by his wife. The stormy narrative of their marriage is also synonymous with the story of the political upheaval and its damaging effects on all the individuals trying to survive in these times.

649. (finished 4/12/15) Casino Royale by Ian Fleming and read by Simon Vance, pub. 1953



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "The plot is simple, even elemental.... The prose is hard and unsparing, the detail minutely fetishistic.... Only in the descriptions of gambling and flagellation...does the prose run away with itself. Otherwise the book takes on the same aspects as its hero's face: 'taciturn, brutal, ironical, and cold'. "

Hunh. Apparently the author of the book blurb agrees with me in that this book may not be one necessary to read. It seems to have been chosen largely due to the iconic status of the films rather than the books.

It is an odd little book and was probably much better as an audiobook than it would be in print form -- I would have gotten very annoyed with the tedious descriptions in print, but was fine with half-listening to the boring bits as I did the laundry. As stated above, the gambling scenes (and the car chase) were the most compelling sections of the novel. Vesper, the "Bond girl", was intriguing and at first seemed like she could be a strong character that could hold her own. But the book starts as the expected action-spy adventure and then, weirdly, in the last 1/4 segues into a romance(?) and it is here that Vesper's character is ruined in a stereotypical 1950s kind of way.

650. (finished 4/15/15) Ancestral Voices by Etienne van Heerden, pub. 1986



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "{A} modern South African classic...part thriller, part soap-opera, and entirely thrilling, Ancestral Voices traces the downfall of the Moolmans.... Etienne van Heerden weaves the past and present together to give a clear vision of the Afrikaner inheritance in the twilight years of apartheid.

I quite enjoyed this dreamy, complex novel. The frame story is that of a magistrate sent to a small town dominated by the Moolman family to investigate the death of the young, illegitimate grandson of the patriarch. Interwoven with his inquiry, are chapters narrated by each of the family members, alive or dead. Each tells the story of the fateful day of the boy's death through the filter of the family member's life and memories. The result is a fascinating, rich story of the history and culture of rural South Africa.

651. (finished 4/21/15) Here's to You, Jesusa! by Elena Poniatowska, pub. 1969



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "Based on actual interviews by Poniatowska, Jesusa Palancares is a synthesis in the first person of the history of Mexico in the twentieth century.... Through subtle handing of the spoken word and the ingenious assembly of sequences that are not always linear, the book reflects the rise of modern Mexico, and it is a perfect example of autobiography by the person interviewed."

The novel expands on a Latin American tradition of testimonial novels. Not meant to be a true biography, they use direct, simple language to relate the events. The story is based on Josefina Bórquez, an old, poor, anonymous Mexican woman, whom the author spent a year interviewing and transcribing notes (Josefina refused to be tape-recorded). Josefina lived an ordinary life in extraordinary times, there are probably thousands that shared her experiences.

Born poor in Oaxaca, Mexico her mother dies at a young age and her father is in and out of her life. He remarries and Jesusa is left with her step-mother and her family for a time, working as cooks and guards in a prison. When she is old enough to escape the abuse, Jesusa joins her father and the revolutionary forces. Eventually, at the age of 15, she is married to a cavalry officer who beats her mercilessly. At the age of 18, she is widowed. Her inexperience and ignorance lead everyone she comes into contact with to rob and swindle her, forcing her to make her own way to the capital with no money. The rest of her life is spent in poverty, working in every occupation available - house cleaning, nursemaid, barmaid, street vendor, washer woman. In all of these occupations, there is one constant -- she never allows anyone to dominate her, which frequently leads to the loss of place. Somehow, Jesus ekes out a living, falling in and out of friendship but never obtaining love or family.

Jesusa is an astonishing, strong-willed person and her story has value. But she is not a "nice" person; she couldn't afford to be. And she is not someone that I enjoyed spending hours with, forced into her warped view of the world. I see the value of the book, but I really didn't like it.

652. (finished 5/2/15) The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago, pub. 1989



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "...José Saramago writes withthe absolute minimum of punctuation. The result, something akin to the serial music of Schoenberg, is a reinvention of the historical novel as we know it.... In the whole of twentieth-century writing there can be no purer example, and certainly no funnier one, of...'palimpsest history' -- that is the novel that offers us an overwriting of history and, in the process, the reinvention of our world."

I am generally fond of styles of writing that pull the reader along, where each thought is connected to the next and there are few full stops. But while I love Saramago's style (and lack of punctuation), I was less impressed with the content of this novel. Perhaps because I am both unfamiliar and uninterested in history lessons. I m fairly certain this is a book more loved in Portugal and other countries that are familiar with crusades and the siege of a Muslim city by Christian forces. Without knowing what had been, it is hard to see the humor in what hadn't been.

So, to me this novel, while containing some beautiful passages and a charming love story, wasn't as meaningful as some of his other novels. I was fascinated by Blindness and it's portrayal of the dissolution of social norms and I loved All the Names with it's detective aspects and ruminations on identity and the individual and the creation of self. But here, history and what might have been are a step removed. The protagonist is writing a novel about history, rather than being personally involved in it.

653. (finished 5/10/15) Dirty Havana Trilogy by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, pub. 1998



Why it is included in the 1001 list: "These sixty narratives, drawn from the poor, form a continuous apocalyptic fresco of Havana in the early 1990s.... With an allegedly anti-literary style (yet stylish in its economy of phrase, risky jargon, and visionary power), Gutiérrez has constructed and described an urban landscape unknown in Spanish-American literature."

The novel is told mostly by "Pedro Juan" a former journalist and writer. Out of work due to his inability to toe the line, he, like most of the city's inhabitants, struggles to earn enough money to stay alive buy selling drugs and black-market food purchased in the country-side, by living on the wages of a lover than earns money as a prostitute, once even by giving drumming lessons to a clueless NY tourist. He lives in dismal conditions, the only pleasure coming from sex and alcohol.

I didn't think I was a prude, but I found much of the subject matter....unpleasant. It is gritty and real in a way that most apocalyptic novels will never be, showing the physical world and the people that are forced to live there in all the full, abject ugliness. I am not sure what makes this book a "trilogy". It has three parts, each composed of various episodes, but while there may be a gradual shift of theme it all appears very much to be one cohesive work.

Between this novel and Before Night Falls, I have no desire to ever visit Cuba.