Noehēcatlapalqui cōāmichtēnqui
My Book Spin list for the Classics Club:
I picked LaValle's book for our family book club. After reading Children of Cain, I had "changeling" on my mind. When I saw the author of The Ballad of Black Tom (one of my best reads from 2021) wrote a book about a changeling, I just had to read it.
Spoilers hence:
Since early in our marriage, I think when we started having kids, my wife has mentioned the changeling. I think she first learned of changelings from the Charlotte Mary Mew poem of the same name. I read it years ago when she pointed it out to me, but about 60% through LaValle's book, I had to read it again. Was this the influence for Maurice Sendak's Outside Over There? Possibly. (No, I'm not going to look it up.)
What can I say here? Great story, only slight negative I have is the (tendency nowadays?) inclusion of "white folks are racist" themes. I am so tired of reading this in books. It ruined Rushdie's Quichotte for me so much that I quit reading it halfway, and it'll be a hard sell for me to read any other book by him. In this book, I dropped it one star due to this. I highlighted several areas in the book where the author's characters insisted that we're all racist. Sorry if you experienced that in your life, but it's not common. No, not even in the south.
But this book is more than that, thankfully. It is magical realism, just like his other book. This one takes the poem farther. And it doesn't hold back on the killin'.
Spoilers, what they are, complete.
Well worth your time. I'm going to keep reading LaValle: he's creative and original. Two things I adore in an author.
Bleck. Probably would have loved it when I was 15, or 22. Blatant rip-off of Starship Troopers, both the book (from what I can remember of reading it in 1990) and movie. A couple quick examples:
They stomped centipedes--these ones Earth centipedes, only a couple of inches long--under their shoes. "That is why we fight!" they chanted.
Insert in comparison the scene in the movie with the kids stomping on bugs and the narrator saying something just like that quote.
Most of the platoon was already there, naked under the hot water, boys and girls alike.
cf the shower scene in Starship Troopers the movie. Also present in this book: the girl who is just a friend but maybe she could be more (Dizzy Flores in Heinlein's book, and Addy Linden in Arenson's). The sweetheart back home who goes to officer training while the main character goes enlisted (never again to meet? Nope, in an army of 300 million, yep, they meet only 6 weeks into his basic training: YGTBFKM). And of course: the alien race massacring the humans? A bug-like race. (And don't get me started on this being set 200 years in our future, yet everyone knows all the 20th c. references. Worked for Ready Player One, as it had a basis & purpose, but not in this book.)
And oh dear God, there are 14 more in this series. No thank you.
I'm probably being too hard on the guy. It's a fun, juvenile read, and that was probably his intended audience. But the reviewer who said "If you're a military veteran...you'll be able to associate with this story very, very well," I don't know WTF he's talking about. Uh, yeah, you'll associate it with an author who has no idea how the military works. No enlisted soldier, let alone an E-1, is going to worship an ensign. Period, dot. And, lieutenants are dumb, too. They're not perfect. Many do stupid shit, but don't get written up in base newspapers. No military is going to give people right off the streets weapons and live ammo only a couple weeks into their military service. Even a military who's been training draftees and volunteers for 50 years. Not. Gonna. Happen.
Ugh. Still, not the worst book I've ever read. But I wish I could have spent those 300+ pages on something else.
Another month has come and gone. I more than doubled last month's, despite being busy in Vegas the last four days.
Books read:
The Classics Club, which I joined 11 months ago, turned 10 years old this month. They've asked members to answer the following questions, so here's my input:
Picked my Loeb copy of Caesar's Civil Wars off the shelf last weekend and breezed through books I and II. Then was busy during the week. Finished book III, and thus the book, today, after moving our youngest into her college dorm. Sadness.
What do you need to know, dear reader, about this book? An Army travels on its stomach. As do its horses. That was a big theme in the book, finding corn and provender. Enough discussion about moving armies here or there, high-ground, slaughter, all that. But really, if you didn't have food for men and animals (not to mention water), you were pretty much screwed.
This one ends in Alexandria, with that war about to start. Classical civilization was war. Now I'm in search for (a cheap version of) Loeb's number 402, covering his wars in Alexandria, as well as Africa and Spain.
"Quite a gay book," I told my friend who suggested I read it. Why did I say such a thing? Well, it surprised me the author's description of (SPOILERS) soldiers going out at night and "picking up queers." There wasn't any kind of explicit sex like you'd read in a Stephen Fry novel, but plenty of suggestion. Yet still, how far did the soldiers go? Just use "the queers" for drinks? Or more? Unsure.
But this was but a small part of this book. It mostly dealt with a unit assigned to Hawaii during the months prior to December 7th. The reader could feel that day approaching while reading this book.
Two main characters here: Milton Warden and Robert E. Lee Prewitt. Sad stories, both. Long and drawn out. I can't imagine what part of the book is featured in the famous beach-and-waves-coming-in scene from the movie.
I read this book on Audible...all 36 hours of it. Holy crap it was long. But well worth the read. Soldier-life during WWII. Were there really that many whorehouses everywhere? Reminded me of stories about the French Foreign Legion. Was there so much adultery in those units?
Interestingly, the author notes at the end of the book that everything in the novel is fiction except for the scene about the murder-beating in the military prison. Scary. That particular part of the novel was difficult to read; glad I didn't know about the truth behind it before reading it. SPOILERS done.
Took a while, but worth it.
I've been translating the book Mi Stelojn Jungis al Revado for my monthly writing club, and it has been such a blast. My Esperanto is pretty good, but translating is another thing altogether. Trying to remain "invisible" as the translator isn't easy. And trying to render in English the creative ways Mikaelo Bronstejn uses Esperanto? Quite the challenge!
So I thought I should read some books. I've read other books on translation and have tried to take lessons from them, but this particular one is about one possible future. Could I make it, even part-time, as a freelance translator?
This book is primarily not about literary translations. Doubtful I'd ever be contracted to translate birth certificates, deeds, or the like from Esperanto to English. But the information was still beneficial. Lots on setting up your day, your office, billing. Also networking, which I'm sure measures heavily in how these freelancers earn money.
The author, Corinne McKay, hosts a wonderful website, Training for Translators, with many nice-looking courses at affordable prices. It was from this website that I got this book.
Dang. Only three books read in July. My lowest ever. Granted, add an inter-city move to it, burying you in boxes, as well as an 8-day business trip, and maybe you'll slow down a bit. Also, start and stop a couple books, that probably affects your reading numbers. Right now I'm reading From Here to Eternity (Audible) and an Esperanto book (see below).
Again, I must ask why I don't simply read everything by this woman, one after the other. This one was awesome. Got it on a Kindle deal ($3 I think) and it drew me in from page 1.
Spoilers below
Juliet works for MI5 during WWII. Does all kinds of fun things, as well as horrible things, witness or actor. Yes, in my wheelhouse: Between the wars and British. And like my previous Atkinson reads (A God in Ruins and Life After Life), jumping through time. Expertly. The ending. Phew. Unexpected. I won't even talk about it here with the spoiler warning, 'cause I want you all to experience the joy.
Everything is here that you'd find in a JLC Smiley novel. The case officers, the officious work colleague, the secretly gay gentleman, the mata hari, peer offspring. Everything I love in a novel. Wonderful, wish it had been twice as long.
Spoilers done.
I encourage everyone who likes well written novels with solid and well thought-out plots to read Atkinson. Start with Life after Life and immediately follow it up with A God in Ruins. Two of the best books I've read in the last 10 years, hands down.
OK, read it. Not just for the Classics Club #ccspin, but also because it is a classic and his The Great Gatsby is incredible. This one, meh. While I love Brit lit between the wars, not as hip to jazz age setting in American lit.
Not that it was bad. Great writing, of course. But my cares for a man who screws around on his wife, or wives that do on their husbands, it's just not that interesting. I don't understand how I can watch Midsomer Murders and marvel at the seemingly ubiquitous affairs British husbands and wives have, and be entertained by it, yet when I read it in American lit, not too interested. Not sure why.
Maybe I prefer it in comedic works? Evelyn Waugh has plenty of affairs (again, British) but they're not the point of the story. Perhaps that's it? Rosemary and Dick and Nicole and...who cares. I was, however, shocked at the relationship between two characters in Tender is the Night; didn't expect that in something written in 1934.
Like I said, great writing. Won't argue that. The guy knew how to write. But finishing this one...not sure I'll rush out to read another by him for a long while.
