I was talking to a young author recently and mentioned that while I had very much enjoyed the first half of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s famous magical realist novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, I hadn’t finished it because it appeared that Garcia Marquez was just making up the rules of his universe as he went along.
I'm glad that I finished The Master and Margarita. I don't know if you did too, but I found the early Pontius Pilate sections really dragged. But now, having finished it, I look forward to reading it again someday.
BTW, I just got my paperback copy of Noticing. As someone who's only been reading you for a few years now I can't wait to get into it.
J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country starts off as an idyllic English countryside summer story with somewhat meandering observations but the ending was very strong, with philosophic reflections about life and death.
I never faltered during _Master and Margarita_. Twice!. But was thwarted by too many characters with the same name in _100 Years of Solitude_, but I shall return. People often quit the Russian greats because they have trouble with Russian naming conventions. Someone can be Ivan Ivanovich Stolypin, or Ivan Invanovich, or Invanovich, or Ivan, or Vanya, or Vanochka. Luckily I studied Russian so was forced to learn those niceties.
It was tough at times but I finished Henry James' _The Golden Bowl_, and am glad I did.
I read _The Sound and the Fury_ completely cold, i.e. I had no prepping whatsoever for how Faulkner's complicated narrative was actually organized. I flailed away at it, but kept on reading, and at some point (I forget exactly where now, but it was well over halfway through the book) I apprehended the book's entire structure -- who everyone was, how they were related, what they'd done, and when -- in an instant of perfect, and incredibly rewarding, crystallization. I've never had another reading experience quite like it. So I am very glad I stuck with it.
A freind gave it to me, I started reading it, and before p100 I felt I really needed to know much more about India than I did. Two of my freshman year roommates were Indian-American, although they were both from a posh town in CT -- Edward Tufte lives there -- and were throughly and completely just nerds. So I really had no sense for the country itself.
Ten years later, I picked up again at a time when I had several Indian friends, adults, and knew their families a bit. The voices and the dialog made much more sense because I could "hear" it much better. I could also recognize some cultural stereotypes that Rushdie has much fun with, and appreciate the in-group ethnic jokes and insults that Indian ex-pats have just like every other culture. The characters jumped out and were compelling.
It's a fantastic book, utterly hilarious in many parts, deeply moving in others. I can't emphasize enough how laugh-out-loud funny it all is.
I realized, "Oh, Salman Rushdie is who Gabriel Garcia Marquez THOUGHT he was."
I'm glad that I finished The Master and Margarita. I don't know if you did too, but I found the early Pontius Pilate sections really dragged. But now, having finished it, I look forward to reading it again someday.
BTW, I just got my paperback copy of Noticing. As someone who's only been reading you for a few years now I can't wait to get into it.
J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country starts off as an idyllic English countryside summer story with somewhat meandering observations but the ending was very strong, with philosophic reflections about life and death.
Tess of Durbervilles
I never faltered during _Master and Margarita_. Twice!. But was thwarted by too many characters with the same name in _100 Years of Solitude_, but I shall return. People often quit the Russian greats because they have trouble with Russian naming conventions. Someone can be Ivan Ivanovich Stolypin, or Ivan Invanovich, or Invanovich, or Ivan, or Vanya, or Vanochka. Luckily I studied Russian so was forced to learn those niceties.
It was tough at times but I finished Henry James' _The Golden Bowl_, and am glad I did.
I read _The Sound and the Fury_ completely cold, i.e. I had no prepping whatsoever for how Faulkner's complicated narrative was actually organized. I flailed away at it, but kept on reading, and at some point (I forget exactly where now, but it was well over halfway through the book) I apprehended the book's entire structure -- who everyone was, how they were related, what they'd done, and when -- in an instant of perfect, and incredibly rewarding, crystallization. I've never had another reading experience quite like it. So I am very glad I stuck with it.
Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses"
A freind gave it to me, I started reading it, and before p100 I felt I really needed to know much more about India than I did. Two of my freshman year roommates were Indian-American, although they were both from a posh town in CT -- Edward Tufte lives there -- and were throughly and completely just nerds. So I really had no sense for the country itself.
Ten years later, I picked up again at a time when I had several Indian friends, adults, and knew their families a bit. The voices and the dialog made much more sense because I could "hear" it much better. I could also recognize some cultural stereotypes that Rushdie has much fun with, and appreciate the in-group ethnic jokes and insults that Indian ex-pats have just like every other culture. The characters jumped out and were compelling.
It's a fantastic book, utterly hilarious in many parts, deeply moving in others. I can't emphasize enough how laugh-out-loud funny it all is.
I realized, "Oh, Salman Rushdie is who Gabriel Garcia Marquez THOUGHT he was."