Reading List: Part I

I know it's a little late for a retrospective, but what can I say, I've been busy! Here are the 43 books I read in 2009.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams [January 2nd, 3rd and 4th.] That's right, I spent New Year's reading! Didn't have anything to do yet, since I was just out of college and jobless. I didn't even have furniture in my apartment yet. I picked the warmest corner of the bedroom and camped out on the floor. Which is what made these follow-ups to the wildly popular Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe (which I had read New Year's Eve) so appropriate. There's nothing like the fantastic to take your mind off humdrum reality, and a bare apartment and no job is about as humdrum and real as it gets.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, January 10th. Like I said, nothing to do. This book was recommended to me by a friend. I was trying to get into new literature, and this wasn't a bad try. Interesting in the kind of light chicklit fad of our times. It certainly was literary in its references, but still stands out in my mind as why I shouldn't write, in case this is the best I can do. Too harsh?

The Road by Cormac McCarthy, January 11th. Cannot say enough about this book. McCarthy is one of my favorite new writers. I loved No Country for Old Men, and look forward to reading more of his work. His writing is everything I wish mine could be: taut, evocative, seamless. The story is very gripping, although the friend I bored the book from said she "couldn't get into it". She's a very optimistic person, though. I could see this book weighing her down. It scared the shit out of me!

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Merisha Pessl, January 15th. I remember liking this book when I read it, although I can't remember anything extraordinary about it now. I think I liked the style of the book, how it starts every chapter with a piece of literature from her "reading list" that is obtusely related to the contents of the chapters. But the plot was far-fetched and contrived, the characters wildly unappealing, including the apparent criminal father, victim teacher and most of all, the clique-ish frenemies: The Hills meets Eton. I do remember looking at the author's picture on the back cover and finding her wildly attractive.

The Reader Bernhard Schlink, January 19. A bizarre book, although I don't think I disliked it for the reason most people did. I think most people were appalled by the cougar seducing the teenage boy. What bothered me was the premise (spoiler alert) that a woman would go to jail and spend most of her life there rather than admit that she couldn't read. I'm sorry, I don't get that, and I don't think Schlink does a very good job justifying this decision. Other than that, I had no problem with the book. Lovely prose.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, January 19th. The stories, which are often over overlooked, were hauntingly effective. I still think of that one with the woman and the little doll that hunts and kills her and eventually takes over her body. The title novella struck me as intense and lonely, much more about the psychology of the last man on earth than the thrills and spills of a zombie/vampire story. Which leads me to the most stirring emotion, which was anger at the movie for robbing this wonderful story of its true meaning. I think they captured the loneliness and despair very well, but the ending of the story was so chilling and was so very betrayed by the movie's departure.

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster, January 25th. This was the second attempt at reading this novel. The first time I got as far as the day-trip to the caves before calling it quits, and upon my second try, was amazed and so grateful that I did read it again, since that is only the beginning of the real novel. The entire novel consists of English tourists trying to catch a glimpse of the "real" India in the colonial nineteenth century. I believe the message of this to novel is that no one knows the "real" India, and that you are far more likely to never find it, or be repulsed by it once you do. The book ends with the main characters more divided than when they started, mostly because the result of the imperial class system. I think Forster was trying to say that India and England can never understand one another as long as one is subservient to the other. I liked glimpsing another side of India. In college I had known Hindu Indians and Sheiks, but never Muslim Indians, which is kind of a rare perspective, and very well portrayed.

"This pose of 'seeing India' which had seduced him to Miss Quested at Chandrapore was only a form of ruling India; no sympathy lay behind it; he knew exactly what was going on in the boat as the party gazed at the steps down which the image would presently descend, and debated how near they might row without getting in trouble officially." p. 306

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde, January 26th. The sequel to The Eyre Affair and as equally forgettable.

Empress Orchid by Anchee Min, February 4th. I have read another account of Empress Tzu Hsi, namely Imperial Woman by Pearl S. Buck, which is one of my favorite of her books, and so I wanted to see how this one compared. Frankly I was a little disappointed. The writing is nothing special, I didn't ever feel transported to another world, and the narrative skips about a little randomly.