Wed Reading Meme...

1. What I just finished reading?

The somewhat generic historical The Other Daughter by Lauren Willig. I was disappointed by it.
Lots of potential but the writer just couldn't pull it together. It's a historical during the Edwardian Age or the 1920s, shortly after WWI.

Here's my review:

( Read more... )

2.) What I'm reading now?

* X-men - Prelude to Schism - which is a character-centric book with lots of back story (think massive ret-con...for everyone but Scott Summers/Cyclops. Which is my difficulty with long-running serials, the writers often don't do their research or conveniently rewrite characters back-stories to suit themselves. Magneto for example? He was Roma Gypsey in the comics not Jewish, and his family died in the camps, because they were gypsies. I thought that was clever. And it fit the character. But the movies and comic book writers ret-conned it, they even changed his original name from Erik to Max. Seriously? Same deal with Wolverine, whose backstory is so convoluted it's not only impossible to follow, but difficult to care about the character any longer.

The only characters that haven't been ret-conned on the original five X-men, Iceman, Beast, Warren,
Jean, and Cyclops.

* Fool Me Twice by Meredith Duran (my other guilty pleasure besides comic books. I appear to like male and female romance novels.) It's about a slightly mad Duke, and his housekeeper who is attempting to purloin various papers from him. Takes place...in the 1800s, I think. The Duke's beloved wife died of an opium overdose. And apparently had written a lot of letters to her various lovers - on how to ruine him. He was a faithful loving husband and a bit of an idealist, she was sleeping with anything with two feet, and manipulating him. Anyhow, when she died the letters came to light and drove him bonkers. He hasn't left his rooms for months. That is until our heroine shows up - she's fleeing her father, who has been trying to kill her since she turned 18, mainly because she's illegitimate and not willing to stay under his control. But she's discovered that the Duke has some damning papers on her father, something that she could use as leverage against him or could be used to get rid of him. So, she's entered the Duke's employ with the intent of purloining the papers. That is if she can get the Duke to leave his rooms long enough in order to search them for the papers. The Duke of course, refuses to leave his rooms. And she has already searched everywhere else. That's the set-up. It's rather amusing. Duran's books usually aren't this funny. Angsty yes, funny no.

*Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - the book club book...which is a heck of a lot more work than it needs to be. Bringing to mind a recent internet discourse that I skimmed regarding accessibility.
Do books need to be accessible to everyone? Uh, no. There's enough books written that you can pretty much find whatever floats your boat -- sort of like livejournal.

Also, I get what the writer is doing and to be fair, he's successful. He's using style and structure to convey character and theme. Most writers just use plot and characters to convey it. They aren't advanced enough as writers, nor comfortable enough with their technique to play with style. Style is tricky. But it's what most writers aspire to - to develop their own voice and own unique style. Otherwise your novel or work reads like everyone else's...it's not uniquely your own. I was able to find my own voice and style via the internet. After about 50 blog posts, I figured out the style that worked best for me. Prior to that, my style was rather generic. I looked at what I wrote in my 20s and 30s, and it was generic, no flair, no sense of style.

That said, there is something to be said for how much the reader needs to work to access the text.
And alas, not all styles are for all readers. If a style doesn't work for you, it doesn't work.

I'm on the fence about whether Cloud Atlas is working for me. On the one hand, I'm obsessed with structure and style - so fascinated. On the other -- I'm finding it hard to focus on it. I think I'd be able to read it better if I wasn't working. It's a beach book or a vacation book or a book you read curled up next to the fire.

To give you an idea what the book is about, assuming you didn't see the movie...

The book is divided into sections. The first is the Journal of Adam Ewing, a notary who is traveling through the Chatham Islands in the 1800s. He's writing this log while suffering various maladies, allegedly caused by a parasite that is slowly eating away his brain. A shipboard doctor is providing him with poison to get rid of the parasite for a price. The style is pretty much what you might expect from a middle-class man traveling on board a ship while ill. Choppy. With lots of abbreviations. Also it ends in mid-sentence, prompting various less than savvy readers to complain to Amazon about a misprint.

The next section at one point references the first section and explains what is going on. This section is basically a bunch of letters from R. Frobisher to his best friend and former lover, Sixsmith. Frobisher happens upon The Journal of Adam Ewing and wonders if Sixsmith can find the rest of the story, since it ends annoyingly in mid-sentence. Also, Frobisher states that he can't quite tell if the Journal is fictional or non-fictional. It's about a notary traveling through the Chatham Islands during the 1800s. A hyper-chrondiac, he is being slowly poisoned by a shipboard doctor, who is milking him of his funds. (None of which I picked up on when I read that section...)

Frobisher is busy having an affair with his employer's wife. He's working as an aid to a famous composer in 1930s Switzerland (I think it's Switzerland...for a while I thought Germany, but that makes no sense since the composer is Jewish and the Germans hate him. He'd be dead.)

3) What I'm reading next?

Probably the Highwayman by Lauren Kerrigan and Falling in Bed with the Duke by Lorraine Heath.

Or whatever else hits my fancy.