The World is Not Enough Wednesday
Sep. 6th, 2017 12:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bWhat I’ve Finished Reading
No one’s happy by the end of Room at the Top. Joe starts an affair with a likable older woman named Alice, whom he feels comfortable talking to as a friend and whose teeth he doesn’t see as a rebuke to his own teeth. This is by contrast to the teeth of Susan, the rich girl, which are white, even, prosperous, and mocking. Joe plots to lure Susan away from her rich boyfriend and get her to marry him, which will be a stick in the eye of the British class system, which would be all very well except he doesn’t particularly enjoy her company and now he’s stuck with it. Not to mention the “necessity” of throwing over Alice, with attendant grisly tragedy and guilt.
Burgess thinks the message here is “stick with your own kind,” but maybe it’s more that everybody loses when guys treat women as class markers instead of as people? It’s hard for me to tell exactly. Joe is not a lovable character but he is a good narrator: bitter, observant, totally unsentimental, almost heroically unembarrassed.
What I’m Reading Now
Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny. The narrator, Fred Cassidy, has been changing his major for thirteen years because his uncle’s will provides for him as long as he is a student, but once he receives his degree the remaining money will go to the Irish Republican Army. He also likes to climb things, so we meet him on the roof of one of the campus buildings. Thirteen years of higher learning has given Fred a healthy respect for the absurd, which may or may not serve him well once he accidentally gets mixed up in the theft of an alien artifact.
This is a weird book about weird things happening, but the snarky matter-of-fact narration makes it work in a way total seriousness wouldn’t. It’s not exactly a comedy, but sometimes it feels like a plot outlined according to the Rule of Funny, then played straight with a narrator who nevertheless sees the humor in any given situation. Fred gets attacked a lot, winds up unconscious in the Australian outback and is rescued by alien agents dressed up as local fauna. Someone is convinced he’s stolen this valuable stone, and Fred is equally convinced that he has no idea where it is. As if that’s not enough, his new advisor is threatening to graduate him come hell or high water, and the artifact business is so distracting he might actually pull it off. What then?
At one of my local coffeehouses, I found a book called The Book of Jane, a Christian chick-lit novel. It’s not stealth Christian like Can't Help Falling, where the Inspiring Message didn't rear its head until two-thirds of the way through, but it is a “witty, modern” retelling of the Book of Job. Is this wise? Is it possible? Is it to be desired? I guess we’ll find out. Jane is a PR agent living in New York, with a cute boyfriend and a non-explicitly gay best friend and an exciting new client and an unshakable faith in God. But would she be so keen on God if her life weren’t perfect??
What I Might Read Next
I went out of town and bought too many books. These will be discussed soon.
No one’s happy by the end of Room at the Top. Joe starts an affair with a likable older woman named Alice, whom he feels comfortable talking to as a friend and whose teeth he doesn’t see as a rebuke to his own teeth. This is by contrast to the teeth of Susan, the rich girl, which are white, even, prosperous, and mocking. Joe plots to lure Susan away from her rich boyfriend and get her to marry him, which will be a stick in the eye of the British class system, which would be all very well except he doesn’t particularly enjoy her company and now he’s stuck with it. Not to mention the “necessity” of throwing over Alice, with attendant grisly tragedy and guilt.
Burgess thinks the message here is “stick with your own kind,” but maybe it’s more that everybody loses when guys treat women as class markers instead of as people? It’s hard for me to tell exactly. Joe is not a lovable character but he is a good narrator: bitter, observant, totally unsentimental, almost heroically unembarrassed.
What I’m Reading Now
Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny. The narrator, Fred Cassidy, has been changing his major for thirteen years because his uncle’s will provides for him as long as he is a student, but once he receives his degree the remaining money will go to the Irish Republican Army. He also likes to climb things, so we meet him on the roof of one of the campus buildings. Thirteen years of higher learning has given Fred a healthy respect for the absurd, which may or may not serve him well once he accidentally gets mixed up in the theft of an alien artifact.
This is a weird book about weird things happening, but the snarky matter-of-fact narration makes it work in a way total seriousness wouldn’t. It’s not exactly a comedy, but sometimes it feels like a plot outlined according to the Rule of Funny, then played straight with a narrator who nevertheless sees the humor in any given situation. Fred gets attacked a lot, winds up unconscious in the Australian outback and is rescued by alien agents dressed up as local fauna. Someone is convinced he’s stolen this valuable stone, and Fred is equally convinced that he has no idea where it is. As if that’s not enough, his new advisor is threatening to graduate him come hell or high water, and the artifact business is so distracting he might actually pull it off. What then?
At one of my local coffeehouses, I found a book called The Book of Jane, a Christian chick-lit novel. It’s not stealth Christian like Can't Help Falling, where the Inspiring Message didn't rear its head until two-thirds of the way through, but it is a “witty, modern” retelling of the Book of Job. Is this wise? Is it possible? Is it to be desired? I guess we’ll find out. Jane is a PR agent living in New York, with a cute boyfriend and a non-explicitly gay best friend and an exciting new client and an unshakable faith in God. But would she be so keen on God if her life weren’t perfect??
What I Might Read Next
I went out of town and bought too many books. These will be discussed soon.
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Date: 2017-09-11 12:43 am (UTC)There's also a very unappealing love interest! But that's more a trial for me than for Jane.