Title: The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky
Author: Vaslav Nijisnky; Edited by Joan Acocella and Translated by Kyril FitzLyon
Date Begun: June 23, 2007
Date Completed: June 28, 2007
There is a blurb on the back of this edition of Nijisnky's diary which nails the experience of reading it, in a way promotional blurbs hardly ever do: "Like watching the permanent eclipse of the sun."
That sums up the experience. While watching Nijinsky approach insanity must have been like watching a racehorse break its legs, experiencing the same time period through his own words is infinitely worse. It is not that the prose is difficult to comprehend - the short, abrupt sentences are fairly easy in and of themselves - but it is a very difficult book to actually read. I find that I want to cry but am entirely unable.
Perhaps the most difficult part is that Nijinsky seems completely aware of his disintegrating mental status. He makes references to other artists and intellectuals that went mad. He references Hamlet (this might have been written by Hamlet, almost). But there are moments when Nijinsky seems equally oblivious to his madness.
I certainly didn't expect such a preoccupation with politics. But I suppose anything written during the post WWI peace conferences must be political.
It's a very difficult book, but I'm glad I read it.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Review: Twilight, Stephanie Meyer
Title: Twilight
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Date Begun: June 20, 2007
Date Completed: June 20, 2007
Stephanie Meyer seems like a pretty nice person (with tragic music taste), so it made me sad when I didn't like Twilight even a little bit. I would have been sadder if I'd paid money for it though.
You're probably thinking "You're reading Twilight now? Way to lose track of the YA literature bandwagon there." And you have a point. The Stephanie Meyer phenomenon is well-documented already. But the third novel is coming out this summer, and it didn't seem too inappropriate to review the first one.
Stuck somewhere between a romance novel and a television show, Twilight follows (Isa)Bella Swan through her move to a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Bella narrates, a tactic I found easier to handle if I thought of Angela Chase's voice doing the narration instead. Normally, this would be a compliment. Really, there's probably nothing wrong with Bella - I sympathize with anyone who is abnormally pale and has to move half-way through high school (been there). But it would be nice if she'd exhibited a personality that was a little less clingy.
Even clingy would have been all right, maybe, if she'd clung to someone other than Edward Cullen. Because frankly, Edward Cullen is kind of a dick. He's high-handed and autocratic, he constantly talks down to Bella and wraps himself up in his own immortal angst. Traits that maybe Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer could have pulled off in a hero don't work here. Even if he was born in 1901, the novel was written in the twenty-first century. I found myself cheering for Jacob Black - a side character in Twilight who seems to come to more prominence in the sequels. Jacob's a sweetheart and probably has his own sources of angst, a more unusual combination than anything Edward Cullen offers even if he is really Henry Cavill. (Henry Cavill was good at being a sweetheart with unsuspected level angst in I Capture the Castle, for what it's worth.)
Twilight isn't egregiously bad. The writing is fine, and as mentioned Bella has her own redeeming qualities. But if I want to hear about angsty love with gorgeous and autocratic vampires? Well, I've already got Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD, thanks.
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Date Begun: June 20, 2007
Date Completed: June 20, 2007
Stephanie Meyer seems like a pretty nice person (with tragic music taste), so it made me sad when I didn't like Twilight even a little bit. I would have been sadder if I'd paid money for it though.
You're probably thinking "You're reading Twilight now? Way to lose track of the YA literature bandwagon there." And you have a point. The Stephanie Meyer phenomenon is well-documented already. But the third novel is coming out this summer, and it didn't seem too inappropriate to review the first one.
Stuck somewhere between a romance novel and a television show, Twilight follows (Isa)Bella Swan through her move to a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Bella narrates, a tactic I found easier to handle if I thought of Angela Chase's voice doing the narration instead. Normally, this would be a compliment. Really, there's probably nothing wrong with Bella - I sympathize with anyone who is abnormally pale and has to move half-way through high school (been there). But it would be nice if she'd exhibited a personality that was a little less clingy.
Even clingy would have been all right, maybe, if she'd clung to someone other than Edward Cullen. Because frankly, Edward Cullen is kind of a dick. He's high-handed and autocratic, he constantly talks down to Bella and wraps himself up in his own immortal angst. Traits that maybe Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer could have pulled off in a hero don't work here. Even if he was born in 1901, the novel was written in the twenty-first century. I found myself cheering for Jacob Black - a side character in Twilight who seems to come to more prominence in the sequels. Jacob's a sweetheart and probably has his own sources of angst, a more unusual combination than anything Edward Cullen offers even if he is really Henry Cavill. (Henry Cavill was good at being a sweetheart with unsuspected level angst in I Capture the Castle, for what it's worth.)
Twilight isn't egregiously bad. The writing is fine, and as mentioned Bella has her own redeeming qualities. But if I want to hear about angsty love with gorgeous and autocratic vampires? Well, I've already got Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD, thanks.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Review: The Rest Falls Away, Colleen Gleason
Title: The Rest Falls Away
Author: Colleen Gleason
Date Begun: June 9, 2007
Date Completed: June 10, 2007
I read almost all of The Rest Falls Away during a criminally slow night at work. The situation was not ideal - I would much rather have read it sometime in January with hot chocolate in constant supply, because that's the sort of book it is. The winter version of a beach read. But, and this is important, it's a high-quality beach read.
Originally, I picked Gleason up on a recommendation from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. They enjoyed the novel - it got a B+ - and the review led me to believe that I would too. There are a lot of elements that push the exact right buttons for me. Vampires in an historical setting, a "good guy" character who would probably be played by James Marsden in the movie version, a spunky heroine (but not one of those irritating spunky heroines, you know?), illegal activity and an alluring underworld. These are all elements that I enjoy in my fantasy life. And Gleason delivers, even if she never really surpasses any of my expectations.
The biggest strength, beyond the heroine, is probably how well-plotted Gleason made everything. Though she stuck in several immediate plot arcs and a couple more over-arching ones, she keeps them all well-organized. I don't think I ever got confused if I wasn't supposed to be, and I had to answer phones and run credit cards in between chapters. The plot and the characters mesh well together, and I enjoyed Gleason's use of mythology and original ideas even if it sometimes tended towards info-dumping. (And as a sidenote, I didn't need Judas Iscariot's identity explained to me. I don't think there are many people who do.) The romantic side-plots are interesting. The Rest Falls Away is getting a lot of obvious comparisons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the romantic tension at least reminds me more of Michelle Sagara's Cast books (Cast in Shadow, Cast in Courtlight, and so on). That a dynamic I enjoy, and I recommend the Sagara books if you enjoyed TRFA, though they're a bit more hardcore fantasy.
For me, the reason Gleason is only getting a B, is that the quality of her prose never really distinguishes itself. What would have been interesting to read would be something along the lines of Georgette Heyer with added sex and vampires. Heyer's style can be recreated, and something along its lines would have served this storyline well. At no point does the simple beauty of Gleason's prose strike you. It is well-written, but there is nothing very poetic in it. There probably should be, when you consider the subject matter.
But I enjoyed it, and I'll certainly look out for the sequels.
The Rest Falls Away at Amazon.com
Author: Colleen Gleason
Date Begun: June 9, 2007
Date Completed: June 10, 2007
I read almost all of The Rest Falls Away during a criminally slow night at work. The situation was not ideal - I would much rather have read it sometime in January with hot chocolate in constant supply, because that's the sort of book it is. The winter version of a beach read. But, and this is important, it's a high-quality beach read.
Originally, I picked Gleason up on a recommendation from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. They enjoyed the novel - it got a B+ - and the review led me to believe that I would too. There are a lot of elements that push the exact right buttons for me. Vampires in an historical setting, a "good guy" character who would probably be played by James Marsden in the movie version, a spunky heroine (but not one of those irritating spunky heroines, you know?), illegal activity and an alluring underworld. These are all elements that I enjoy in my fantasy life. And Gleason delivers, even if she never really surpasses any of my expectations.
The biggest strength, beyond the heroine, is probably how well-plotted Gleason made everything. Though she stuck in several immediate plot arcs and a couple more over-arching ones, she keeps them all well-organized. I don't think I ever got confused if I wasn't supposed to be, and I had to answer phones and run credit cards in between chapters. The plot and the characters mesh well together, and I enjoyed Gleason's use of mythology and original ideas even if it sometimes tended towards info-dumping. (And as a sidenote, I didn't need Judas Iscariot's identity explained to me. I don't think there are many people who do.) The romantic side-plots are interesting. The Rest Falls Away is getting a lot of obvious comparisons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the romantic tension at least reminds me more of Michelle Sagara's Cast books (Cast in Shadow, Cast in Courtlight, and so on). That a dynamic I enjoy, and I recommend the Sagara books if you enjoyed TRFA, though they're a bit more hardcore fantasy.
For me, the reason Gleason is only getting a B, is that the quality of her prose never really distinguishes itself. What would have been interesting to read would be something along the lines of Georgette Heyer with added sex and vampires. Heyer's style can be recreated, and something along its lines would have served this storyline well. At no point does the simple beauty of Gleason's prose strike you. It is well-written, but there is nothing very poetic in it. There probably should be, when you consider the subject matter.
But I enjoyed it, and I'll certainly look out for the sequels.
The Rest Falls Away at Amazon.com
Monday, June 4, 2007
Review: Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
Title: Tipping the Velvet
Author: Sarah Waters
Date Begun: June 2, 2007
Date Completed: June 3, 2007
I quite enjoyed Tipping the Velvet. I've meant to read it for several years, but it took watching the miniseries to spur me on and actually buy it. (So much historical fiction with lesbians, so little time. Or something.) Nancy, the protagonist, is engaging and likeable. But she was far from perfect, thankfully. She is a strong narrator, both resilient and humorous and often unexpectedly sweet.
Indeed, characterization is probably the biggest draw. I enjoyed reading about all the characters. None of Nancy's lovers are perfect, but they're all understandable. Even Diana, who is kind of frightening (Anna Chancellor did a great job with the role in the adaptation) has a sort of draw which reaches out through the pages of the book. It's not wonder Nancy is entranced by her. Florence, who becomes her dream girl, is far from perfect, but certainly enjoyable despite that. I enjoyed the way Waters brings in socialism towards the end of the novel, but I have a big kink for socialists so, um, right.
But the inclusion of socialism brings me to an important point about Tipping the Velvet. If you were to read a summary of the novel, it would all seem more than improbable. Somehow, the twists of the plot all work. Some of them definitely shouldn't work, but Waters has an amazing ability to pull it all off. Once disbelief is suspended, it stays that way. So well done. It's a very densely plotted novel, and the tension dissipates just when it ought to and not a moment before.
Still, Tipping the Velvet was not quite the erotic read I'd expected. Perhaps fanfiction has ruined me. There was really very little titillation, which I suspect had something to do with the writing style. I suppose I'd thought to read something more langorous and sultry, but because of the first person narration and Nancy's characterization, the finished product is fairly conversational. It's an entertaining and sometimes scandalous letter from a high school friend, rather than the Marquis de Sade's memoirs.
Tipping the Velvet at Amazon.com
Author: Sarah Waters
Date Begun: June 2, 2007
Date Completed: June 3, 2007
I quite enjoyed Tipping the Velvet. I've meant to read it for several years, but it took watching the miniseries to spur me on and actually buy it. (So much historical fiction with lesbians, so little time. Or something.) Nancy, the protagonist, is engaging and likeable. But she was far from perfect, thankfully. She is a strong narrator, both resilient and humorous and often unexpectedly sweet.
Indeed, characterization is probably the biggest draw. I enjoyed reading about all the characters. None of Nancy's lovers are perfect, but they're all understandable. Even Diana, who is kind of frightening (Anna Chancellor did a great job with the role in the adaptation) has a sort of draw which reaches out through the pages of the book. It's not wonder Nancy is entranced by her. Florence, who becomes her dream girl, is far from perfect, but certainly enjoyable despite that. I enjoyed the way Waters brings in socialism towards the end of the novel, but I have a big kink for socialists so, um, right.
But the inclusion of socialism brings me to an important point about Tipping the Velvet. If you were to read a summary of the novel, it would all seem more than improbable. Somehow, the twists of the plot all work. Some of them definitely shouldn't work, but Waters has an amazing ability to pull it all off. Once disbelief is suspended, it stays that way. So well done. It's a very densely plotted novel, and the tension dissipates just when it ought to and not a moment before.
Still, Tipping the Velvet was not quite the erotic read I'd expected. Perhaps fanfiction has ruined me. There was really very little titillation, which I suspect had something to do with the writing style. I suppose I'd thought to read something more langorous and sultry, but because of the first person narration and Nancy's characterization, the finished product is fairly conversational. It's an entertaining and sometimes scandalous letter from a high school friend, rather than the Marquis de Sade's memoirs.
Tipping the Velvet at Amazon.com
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