I just finished The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. I recently re-read Thackeray’s The Newcomes and it made a very interesting contrast; there were quite a few parallels and clearly Tarkington had Thackeray in mind when he was writing it (since he name-checks “Henry Esmond”, “The Virginians” and “Pendennis”).
But the ending was just awful! Truly something worthy of Stephen King or Charles Dickens, with a bunch of hokum about a nitroglycerin factory, a tragic accident and a psychic channeler crammed into the last couple of chapters. And it was going so well…
Stephen King’s On Writing has been on my list for a while and I finally finished it. In retrospect, I wish I would have read it later in October to have it fresh in my mind for NaNoWriMo.
I’m not sure what possessed me, but after that I read Call Me by John Locke (aka Dani Ripper or something). This book is the literary equivalent to a Chips Ahoy cookie. To me, a Chips Ahoy cookie is pretty bad, but it’s still a sweet treat and if someone offered you one, you’d still probably eat it. You’d feel bad that you just ate a bunch of empty calories and probably would’ve enjoyed any other cookie instead, but that Chips Ahoy was just handy and convenient.
I can see why the guy is a bestseller on Amazon if that book is indicative of his other work. The chapters are all maybe 3-4 pages long at the most. In fact, there are a lot of chapter breaks that are really unnecessary except to give the reader a small sense of accomplishment that they’ve suffered through another chapter and are that much closer to the end. The protagonist/author(?) Dani Ripper is the ultimate Mary Sue who after being kidnapped into some sort of sex dungeon when she was 15, is completely wonderful and pretty and well-adjusted, and loved by everyone and everything and I’m surprised songbirds didn’t try to land on her shoulders and do a duet. Actually, there was sort of an attempt at that. Seriously.
To compound on that the author, John Locke, is trying to write from a woman’s perspective. And by that I mean “very stereotypical bordering on offensive”. Then there’s the ending…or what would call “the Scooby Doo explanation”. As without it, you’d never have guessed what had happened if someone didn’t fill you in making the last 60 chapters useless. And that’s the one bad thing about reading a book on the Kindle is that you can’t throw the Kindle at the wall like you could if it were a paperback.
Next up, I just started The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. This is where the flash backs of Stephen King’s book and his section on not using adverbs comes roaring into the back of my mind with each page turn. So far it’s at least interesting.
I think Tarkington should have ended the novel immediately after making the observation that Georgie Amberson had finally gotten the comeuppance everyone had always wanted him to get… but that nobody noticed or cared, because the Ambersons just didn’t matter to anyone any more.
The Lovell book sucks. Jessica Mitford’s young husband steals a few hats and that is presented as a terrible crime according to Lovell. Meanwhile Hitler is presented through Unity Mitford and Sydney Mitford’s eyes as a fundamentally loveable person with a strong sense of morals and even a sense of humor.
Blood and Silver by James R. Tuck. One of a series, though it’s very difficult to figure out the names of the other books in the series since this publication only lists one other book, but he keeps referring back to other events which haven’t been written up in either book. The main character is a vampire and were hunter. My favorite part is that he mentions knowing about other occult hunters such as “Anita in St. Louis”, referring characters in other authors’ books.
Probably because they led very interesting lives that put them in spotlight very often. They were also very connected to many of the most powerful people of their day including Winston Churchill who married their father’s first cousin Clementine Hozier and knew all of them quite well. Churchill kept up correspondence with several of his cousins.
Nancy wrote good novels and amusing social satire that sold a lot of copies during the 1930’s and 40’s. Diana, an incredibly beautiful woman, was married to the head of the British Union of Fascists and one of the most hated women in England during WWII. She left her husband and two sons to marry him. She and her husband Oswald Mosley were imprisoned in England for four years during the duration of the war for involvement in activities the British authorities felt were treasonous. She also met Hitler numerous times and wrote nice things about him. She was imprisoned at least partially because her sister Nancy hated her and told others about some of her activities. She later became another well known British author, publishing memoirs that gained a lot of attention.
Unity Mitford factually fell in love in with Hitler, got a lot of press attention over it, met the guy multiple times, had him sort of court her and shot herself when Germany and England went to war. Jessica Mitford was a fan of communism initially, later denounced it, moved to America where she became a crusading American journalist who wrote the American Way of Death, a wonderful piece of investigative journalism and was heavily involved in the US civil right movement. Deborah Mitford, the youngest, (still alive, BTW) became Duchess of Devonshire and wrote many books on historic preservation.
They are interesting people even one wants to smack Diana’s pretty little head against a wall for the miserable anti-Semitism she never left behind her entire life.
Jessica was also a huge victim of her mother’s anti-vax hysteria and lost her baby girl to a case of measles. I cried reading that part of the book.
Umm okay. I think ANYTHING have to do with these people is firmly on my “wouldn’t-touch-with-a-1000-foot-pole” list. I’m sure 6 million dead Jews would agree it sucks to be hated for your views.
It is not Jessica Mitford’s fault two of her sisters were Nazi assholes. She personally literally yelled at Churchill when he was visiting the White House that she would have been happy to see Diana shot after he tried to comfort her by telling her he was working to try and make conditions easier for Diana in prison during the war. Churchill was trying to be nice to her right after her husband was shot down fighting on Britain’s side during the war. Mitford was very much involved in the American civil rights movement including brave confrontations with the KKK and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Her book on the funeral industry let to congressional hearings on the subject.
She was an admirable person who helped save lives and make America a better place.
I don’t mind having a happy ending; after all, it was mentioned many times that George Minafer had a spark of something special inside him. It’s just the ham-fisted way that he introduced all of those new elements (psychic powers? really?) was disappointing.
Jessica Mitford was someone I both admire and find annoying as heck. The runaway tantrums in Spain so she could do teen drama put real people in punishment so rich English girl would go home. Or her claim race riots in California were from transplanted Southerners. Only southerners are racist. Oh please. Nancy is a charmer. I capture the castle and other books were influenced by Nancy writing about her family. Deborah wrote an okay memoir wait for me. She didn’t grow up with them (age) and the isolation they experienced in different ways might be more honest from her (no parents favorites power plays).
Yesterday I finished Red Country by Joe Abercrombie. Pretty sure I read a recommendation of it somewhere on the Dope, perhaps in this very thread. In which case, I owe someone a fine bottle of Powers. It was an absorbing fantasy Western with poignant moments. Loved the never-named return of a certain critical character from the First Law books. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t seek out a bookstore in Bath where I might have gotten a signed copy of one of Abercrombie’s books.
I finished Fables: Super Team last night. Mister Dark made a decent Big Bad, and I was pleasantly surprised by his choice of bride.
A few other books going at the moment: Gaiman’s American Gods (so far v.g.), Robert Graves’ Good-bye to All That, Christopher Moore’s Fool, and Esther Woolfson’s Corvus: A Life with Birds. Thus far Woolfson hasn’t cured me of wishing that I had a pet raven - or perhaps, that I was the pet human of a raven.
Just finished reading Bill Bryson’s “The Lost Continent – Travels in Small Town America”. Found this in a tag sale and figured I’d give it a try.
Bryson tries to replicate his family’s driving vacations by getting in a car and driving huge distances to the kind of cheesy destinations that his father loved or that Bryson always wanted to see. Usually I like Bryson’s writing, but this time around it comes across as mostly snotty rather than humorous. It’s also extremely dated as it was written in the late 80’s – it’s hard to share Bill’s outrage at paying $30.00 or $40.00 for a hotel room.
It turns out that you really can’t make valid observations about places by driving through them in one day (although it has never stopped me from doing it and certainly didn’t stop Bryson). But he really lost me when he tried driving to the Cape on Columbus Day weekend and decided that the whole place was a crowded tourist trap. Which is true – but if he had waited even one day, the crowds would have cleared out and the place would have been fabulous (or in the case of Provincetown, even more fabulous).
I have to agree with your assessment here. The book is superficial, unfunny and obnoxious. His other books are much better. But as much as I love Cape Cod, I think Provincetown sucks. Too expensive, too far and not particularly special.
I recently finished Charles Rosenberg’s Long Knives, which was one of Amazon’s free Kindle offerings a month or two ago. I found the mystery interesting enough that I finished it in a reasonable amount of time, but his writing style grated on me. Particularly annoying was his habit of having characters mention each other’s names all of the time.
“What do you think, Jenna?”
“I don’t know, Aubrey, it might be too green. What do you think?”
“Well, Jenna, I think it’s just green enough.”
“But Aubrey, are you sure?”
That little example might have been made up, but wasn’t an exaggeration. Someone must have told a young Rosenberg that including names in the dialogue would help the reader keep track of who was speaking, and he took it to heart (and now takes it too far). It was distracting.
I’m currently reading Lisa Scottoline’s Final Appeal, which TexCat mentioned in the March “What’cha Reading” thread. At first I didn’t think I was going to like it, but it’s gotten better – and so far, the mystery is interesting. I’ll stick with it.
