No, you won't. Liar.
While reading, I'm going to imagine every piece of violence described in the book is happening to you.
No, you won't. Liar.
I got a question for everyone: is it imperative for you to like the main character in order to enjoy a book?
I saw this essay on HuffPo about how readers today seem to want to relate to the main character.
Evan Gottlieb: Do We Need to Identify With a Protagonist to Enjoy a Novel?
I'm the kind of reader who needs a "psychologically plausible" character than someone who I would want in my everyday life. I have considered putting down books because of characters I didn't like, but there were other reasons to continue reading besides them. There's more to a book rather than the main character, to me at least.
So, what's everyone's criteria?
I've finished Cloud Atlas.
It's certainly a very imaginative, ingenious and immensely ambitious book. As expected, it was somewhat uneven and a bit anti-climactic, but the latter is also due to the wonderful structuring of the book, going reverse in time (or not?) in the second half, leaving the stories that left me slightly underwhelmed at the beginning in the end. The futuristic chapters were excellent, especially the Sonmi section which is one of the better dystopian stories I've read. The Luisa Rey storyline was pretty much a trashy thriller with some great and some cringe-worthy moments, but it was certainly an entertaining read. I love the meta-feel of the novel, where my exact criticisms about it get reflected in the book itself in the next chapter.
So, although I do have some problems with it, it was a fascinating read. I'm curious about the movie. I know that it got very polarizing reactions, which is not surprising since there are so many things that could go wrong with it. It already seems miscast in places to me (Tom Hanks as Zachry??), and I've heard about some actors actually getting "yellow faces" which is pretty fucking ridiculous, but the visuals look fascinating and both Tykwer and the Wachowskis seem to have their heart in the right place.
Next up for books - Infinite Jest. Now this is going to be quite a journey, since I've never read a 1000+ page novel before. David Foster Wallace was such a fascinating individual. I've read his essays on Lynch and Kafka and we seem to have similar tastes and conclusions about their work (although I could never articulate or go so much in depth into them as he did of course). I've also read his short story "The Depressed Person" and I love his style of mixing tragic with hilarious. In any case, it seems his writing is my cup of tea.
Finished 1984, at a breakneck speed I rarely reach with any novel. What an absorbing, terrifying experience. The world Orwell creates is so well thought out and logically structured that the fantastical elements of the story begin to feel scarily real. The prose itself is thought provoking and deliciously eloquent. It's one of those great novels that I could discuss for hours.
Infinite Jest is a monster, but you'll be laughing so hard through much of it you won't mind the commitment.
I think The Black Dahlia is one of the finest books of the genre, but they're all fantastic in their own way.
You might want to consider going back to one of Ellroy's inspirations though: Jim Thompson set the bar for really dark crime fiction, and you could probably polish off a couple of his novels in the time it would take you to read The Big Nowhere or L.A. Confidential.
Just started the Killer Inside of Me. Highly unsettling, to say the least.
Undaunted Courage will commence later today.
That's it??
I've read a few Flemish classics and I'm thinking of reading some of the classics in Russian/English/American literature. I just have to figure out where I'm going to start.