Book reviews
Dec. 9th, 2009 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWell, it appears to have stopped raining and is warmer than it was this morning or so I've been informed by the people in the cubicles around mine, who ventured out to grab lunch. I brought my own - butternut squash soup and spicy green/tuna salad (left over from last night - I'd bought fresh tuna steak from the farmer's market on Sunday and made a fresh nicoise salad out of it.) If it stays warm, maybe I'll do my workout at the gym tonight. Am on the fence, each week I do it, am sore.
I don't think the storm we got last night is the same one that plaqued the rest of the country...I think we're still going to get that one. I hope I'm wrong. Because it would be really bad if that storm hit on the 16th when I'm heading off to SC.
Read a bunch of reviews on Amazon.com of Palimpsest by Catherine Valiente- which I have not read and don't own, out of curiousity. Hit me how much people's mileage varies. And not by a small margin. Some readers were declaring the novel the best thing they'd ever read, a book of rare genius, others an okay book with beautiful sentences but no characters or story to really hold them, and others - a poorly written book, that didn't make a lot of sense.
The range reminds me a little of how I felt about Sebold's The Lovely Bones and how everyone else felt about it. I remember disliking the book a great deal. It was frustrating to read - because the characters and story felt intangible to me, remote, and unknowable. One of those novels that is more about a theme or idea than about people. Or that is what I remember thinking at the time. I can't really remember much else about it - except that we spend a lot of time with a ghostly heroine watching her grieving family who never quite finds her killer. I suppose you could say it is a beautiful exploration of grief - which Peter Jackson and those who made the film attest, as well as the critics and Sebold devotees, but I've seen it done better elsewhere. Deep End of the Ocean comes to mind, as does Whedon's The Body, and the film Reservation Road. None of these gave the viewer/reader the comfortable option of heaven. The grief was far more real and far rawer. And for me, I felt more interesting. But others who read the book - loved the ghost element and felt the heaven bits were hopeful and beautiful. (shrugs).
Same deal with Twilight - a series that I personally find unreadable, has a devoted following amongst my extended family - several cousins and aunts adore it to pieces, as do people at my workplace. Something in the novels and films must appeal to them, I'm guessing. And it most likely is the fantasy romance, which oddly enough turns me off. (I'm guessing they would hate Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video, but I'm probably wrong.) I have no idea why Dorothy Dunnett's Chronicles of Lymond continues to be amongst my favorite series, or why I loved the Hobbit and Dune as much as I did. Or what it is about Connie Willis's Doomsday Book that is holding my attention but clearly did not in Stoker's Dracula (which I finally gave up on.). Or why I still can vividly remember every detail of The Great Gatsby, Perilious Guard, or Richardson's Clarissa (all of which I read in the 1980s), but can't remember anything of The Lovely Bones (which I disliked) or the latest Harry Potter(which I rather adored) (in 2000-2009).
If I can't answer these questions for myself, how can I possibly understand why other's like what they do, or don't as the case may be? And to that end, how reliable are reviews of books? How do you know you'll like a book based on what someone else tells you about it? What if you don't have the same taste? I mean can I trust a book rec from an aunt who adores Twilight but never watched Buffy and can't make it through Tolkien?
Maybe before providing a review, the reviewer should provide us with a list of books they read and adored, so we'll know if our tastes match and if the review is reliable measure of how much we'd enjoy the book. And maybe the same should be done prior to tv, music and film reviews?
I don't think the storm we got last night is the same one that plaqued the rest of the country...I think we're still going to get that one. I hope I'm wrong. Because it would be really bad if that storm hit on the 16th when I'm heading off to SC.
Read a bunch of reviews on Amazon.com of Palimpsest by Catherine Valiente- which I have not read and don't own, out of curiousity. Hit me how much people's mileage varies. And not by a small margin. Some readers were declaring the novel the best thing they'd ever read, a book of rare genius, others an okay book with beautiful sentences but no characters or story to really hold them, and others - a poorly written book, that didn't make a lot of sense.
The range reminds me a little of how I felt about Sebold's The Lovely Bones and how everyone else felt about it. I remember disliking the book a great deal. It was frustrating to read - because the characters and story felt intangible to me, remote, and unknowable. One of those novels that is more about a theme or idea than about people. Or that is what I remember thinking at the time. I can't really remember much else about it - except that we spend a lot of time with a ghostly heroine watching her grieving family who never quite finds her killer. I suppose you could say it is a beautiful exploration of grief - which Peter Jackson and those who made the film attest, as well as the critics and Sebold devotees, but I've seen it done better elsewhere. Deep End of the Ocean comes to mind, as does Whedon's The Body, and the film Reservation Road. None of these gave the viewer/reader the comfortable option of heaven. The grief was far more real and far rawer. And for me, I felt more interesting. But others who read the book - loved the ghost element and felt the heaven bits were hopeful and beautiful. (shrugs).
Same deal with Twilight - a series that I personally find unreadable, has a devoted following amongst my extended family - several cousins and aunts adore it to pieces, as do people at my workplace. Something in the novels and films must appeal to them, I'm guessing. And it most likely is the fantasy romance, which oddly enough turns me off. (I'm guessing they would hate Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video, but I'm probably wrong.) I have no idea why Dorothy Dunnett's Chronicles of Lymond continues to be amongst my favorite series, or why I loved the Hobbit and Dune as much as I did. Or what it is about Connie Willis's Doomsday Book that is holding my attention but clearly did not in Stoker's Dracula (which I finally gave up on.). Or why I still can vividly remember every detail of The Great Gatsby, Perilious Guard, or Richardson's Clarissa (all of which I read in the 1980s), but can't remember anything of The Lovely Bones (which I disliked) or the latest Harry Potter(which I rather adored) (in 2000-2009).
If I can't answer these questions for myself, how can I possibly understand why other's like what they do, or don't as the case may be? And to that end, how reliable are reviews of books? How do you know you'll like a book based on what someone else tells you about it? What if you don't have the same taste? I mean can I trust a book rec from an aunt who adores Twilight but never watched Buffy and can't make it through Tolkien?
Maybe before providing a review, the reviewer should provide us with a list of books they read and adored, so we'll know if our tastes match and if the review is reliable measure of how much we'd enjoy the book. And maybe the same should be done prior to tv, music and film reviews?
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-09 06:22 pm (UTC)We're all very miserable here!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-09 07:18 pm (UTC)I think this would be a very good idea.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 12:39 am (UTC)I once grilled a whole bunch of family members at a get-together about this topic, trying to gather the same info about their taste and formative influences. It was informative inasmuch as the younger members had no idea what they might like until they stumbled on it (not enough media exposure/time to develop recognition of "kinks") and also because it made clear why it's a safer bet for me to take media recs from one particular aunt over other family members.
Yet even though I kind of recognize my own patterns, I still don't know why some things resonate SO strongly, and other things that I would think would hit all my "kinks" leave me cold.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 05:31 pm (UTC)This is my problem. That and the fact that I tend to be a)ecclectic in my tastes in that I like a broad range of things, and b)am somewhat moody - in that I might like something one day and hate it another depending on my frame of mind.
Also it is more than possible that I'll love a book/tv show/film/music when I first read/saw/heard it, yet years later try and think ugh, what was I thinking or vice versa. For example - I could not read Connie Willis's Doomesday Book when I bought it ten years ago.
Now, for some reason - I'm loving it.
Makes shopping for oneself or anyone else difficult.