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The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

I quote:

I finished the unfinishable! Now I can tell you that it was The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, a Victorian mystery novel that people used to think was very good, because people had a lot of free time in the 19th century before they invented the internet. Collins' other famous novel, The Moonstone, is pretty cool, but this one was evidently written when he was young and dumb and paid by word count.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Upon rereading, still cool, even cooler than I remembered; it's hard to believe it was written by the same person as the boring and ridiculous The Woman in White. This one has such a pleasant (if not very sophisticated) sense of humor, such an easy hand with the characterizations. The way you instantly dislike Godfrey just by hearing the good things everyone says about him, or the way you can only figure out how ridiculous Miss Clack is only by reading her own narrative. It's having so much fun.

The political (?) undercurrent is stronger than I thought the first time. I mean, it's made abundantly clear that Franklin and Rachel's story that we're hearing is not actually very tragic or suspenseful at all, because lower-class people like Rosanna and Ezra are the ones with the actual problems. It's also clear from the beginning that whatever happens to the Moonstone, it belongs in India anyway. Limping Lucy is a parody of a socialist/man-hating feminist/possible lesbian, but she makes strong points. Why does everyone like Franklin? You like Franklin when you read other people's descriptions, but in his own narrative he comes off as a spoiled, proud brat who'll only look at someone from the lower classes if he needs them or if they're a hot babe.

So there's that, but the novel as a whole doesn't take itself too seriously, which is why it's so good. Not a masterpiece, but very well done.

The Wandering Jew by Stefan Heym

An extremely interesting novel, which seems to take on the whole weight of the destiny of mankind -- and I'll need to read it at least once more before I can actually say anything about it. Christian mythology, 20th-century politics, personal morality... Really complex.

The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison

I expected this tiny book to be much harder to read, considering how the subject matter makes me physically flinch. The magazine articles when it came out made it sound like it was challenging the incest taboo. It isn't. No more than Lolita challenged the idea that pedophilia is bad.

It's definitely a riveting story. Also well-written, very elegantly phrased. But it doesn't leave the strong impression that such a powerful and well-told story should leave, and I think it's because of the psychologizing. The way the narrative picks up recurring images and psychological symbols and ties them neatly to each other, it reads almost like a case story rather than an autobiographical text. Which doesn't necessarily hurt the credibility, because sometimes that's how life actually is -- sometimes the person who threatens you sexually does like to wave a pen, and sometimes the character that doesn't want to recognize you as a person does close her eyes a lot. But it does hurt the story. Things are so explained that they're explained away.

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

As I said, ridiculously bad. I am officially too old for 1950s science fiction.

Temporarily reviving this journal, until I find a more suitable way to keep up with what I read. I'm currently reading Childhood's End and so far it's spectacularly badly written.

Enchanted Life by Diana Wynne Jones

I'm beginning to recognize some features as typical Diana Wynne Jones: quick characterizations, child anti-heros that are understood but not coddled by the narrator, and a deft, well-planned plot that somehow still makes you feels like you've gone nowhere.

I enjoy her writing, but it's too flat, or too cold, I think -- you turn the pages but you don't actually care what's going on, so once you're done, the whole thing flows right out of your head.

Spindle's End by Robin McKinley

A good, strong story -- I'd say "excellent" if it weren't for the ending. A very rich and original fantasy setting described intelligently and with humour. The characters are engaging, although not quite deep. I loved that there's a strong sense both of individuality and community around the heroine(s) -- they're strong women feeling strong love for their families and friends (not just for their lovers, which is also a refreshing change).

I also liked the defamiliarization trick in which every magic spell/creature/action that should be very familiar to anyone who's ever read fantasy turns into something completely strange and mysterious -- because that's how it is to the characters. Fantasy writers often try to do this, but they mostly don't succeed.

The ending gets pretty confusing because of this, though. None of the characters seem to know what's happening, and neither does the reader, really. Writers should be much more careful with their anti-climaxes.

The natural comparison with Ella Enchanted makes Ella looks pretty bad, but that's a bit unfair, since Ella is intentionally fluffier and closer to being a parody of fairy tales.

Speeking of fluff, the ultra-pink cover does this book a huge disservice, as it makes it look like kitsch for 10-year-old girls. It's not.

After Dachau by Daniel Quinn ["אחרי הספירה"]

I picked it up at Tzomet Sfarim's 20-shekel bin because I had a hunch, glancing at the cover, that there would be something cool about it, and I am not disappointed.

It's not a good book. It makes no sense as science fiction and the concept is hardly original. The dialogues are strong, though, and the plot is very well-built in some ways, and it's just this fun little creepy science fiction fairytale of the kind I used to enjoy as a kid, with writing just good enough to separate it from true trash.

The plot summaries on the novel's Amazon.com page completely spoil the whole thing. WTF.

The Eye in the Pyramid (book one of the Illuminatus! trilogy) by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

I don't have much of a reaction to this one. It was a reasonably fun read but I forgot all about it as soon as I turned over the last page, and I highly doubt that I'm ever going to read the rest of the trilogy. There's just nothing in there. Amusing, over-the-top fluff with some high-school boy wet dreams thrown in.

I don't actively dislike it the way I disliked Foucault's Pendulum, though. They're very similar and similarly uninteresting, but...I had no expectations from The Eye in the Pyramid, and also, it didn't take up as much of my free time.

Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds

Wow.

I don't usually go for macho spy/suspense stories, especially not when they involve space travel, but this one pulled me right in and didn't disappoint. The plot is breathtakingly complex and full of twists (of course, it helps that I'm uncommonly dense) and the possibilities of the genre are taken advantage of very, very cleverly. By which I mean that the SF elements aren't just a decoration. Nor are they just a tool serving the suspense plot here, actually -- there's a good number of what SF fans call "good ideas".

...And seeing as I just spent 8 straight hours finishing this book (ow, my eyes), I think I can officially dub it a page-turner.

Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild

It's not nearly as impressive as Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed; it's a series of opinions and personal stories and calls for social change. Some of the articles are very interesting (and disturbing), but they don't amount to anything coherent. I guess they aren't meant to.

I liked the open-minded discussion of prostitution; I haven't encountered anything intelligent about the subject before (mostly because I haven't looked). The most important insight I got -- which is obvious, in retrospect -- is that it's unhelpful and prejudiced to talk about prostitution as one phenomenon. The people who do it by choice don't have much in common with the ones who are kidnapped and forced into slavery.

Nepotul magicianului by C. S. Lewis

...That's The Magician's Nephew, book two (or one...) of The Chronicles of Narnia.

The point of reading it in Romanian was to practice my Romanian, of course, but it turned out to be a great experience all around. First of all: reading Narnia in a language I don't know very well restored some of the heaviness and sense of mystery to it. One of the reasons children's books aren't as interesting when you're an adult, I think, is that you read them much quicker than they're intended to be read.

Second: I gained some renewed respect for Lewis. He really knew how to write for beginning readers. There's some sort of conflict or surprise in almost every sentence, and yet the whole thing flows effortlessly.

Third: the fairytale vocabulary took me back to when I was five years old and my grandmother read to me (in Romanian) Snowwhite and stories out of A Thousand and One Nights. Aw.

Fourth: it's just a good book and I like it a lot. Yes, I like Lewis's Christian allegory. I've engaged in this debate elsewhere, so just to recap: allegory is a great art when it's done well; Christian symbolism is pretty; the fact that the messages are disturbing just adds to the charm. That's one of the advantages of being an adult: you can parse subtexts and be interested in them whether you agree with them or not.

By the way, I am now more convinced than ever that the right reading order is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first, and this one second. It's absolutely a prequel. You can't enjoy it on its own, and it spoils too much of The Lion.

The Pilgrim Soul: Being a Russian in Israel by Elana Gomel

* I read the Kinneret-Zmora-Bitan Hebrew edition, I don't know if there is an English edition.

Reading this book was a lot like being in one of Dr. Gomel's classes: I got the feeling that if I knew enough, I could argue with every single point she makes, but since I don't, I was happy to just sit back and enjoy the ride. And, like her best lectures, it's quite a ride -- she flies around the subject in huge, lovely loops and ends up somewhere that may not quite be the center but is very interesting.

This is much more personal and violent than an English department lecture, though. Quite provocative. I wouldn't like to be there when someone who does know something or feel strongly about the Russian community in Israel reads this. There may be blood.

Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin

I admire the way Le Guin writes. Too somber -- meaning that, if I ever write again, I'd like my writing to have more of a sense of humor -- but the cleanness of it, the unapologetic directness, always amazes me. It's like she managed to work her way back to another, healthier age, before people had to be ironic and neurotic and clever. When they could just...say what happened.

This is a small, honest, often sad coming-to-age story, with a very down-to-earth and believeable description of life in a very odd, magic-filled community. And then you finish and look back and realize that not much happened, actually. But that just means that it's not a "star" novel -- it's not going to be a lot of children's Narnia. It's still a fine book, wise and well-written. It's reminiscent of Earthsea, actually, at least in mood, but the themes are much more interesting than Earthsea's useless Jungian mysticism.

Also, there's an incredibly astute description of grieving for a parent, particularly this passage:

So I call it in my mind: the dark year.
To try to tell it is like trying to tell the passage of a sleepless night. Nothing happens. One thinks, and dreams briefly, and wakes again; fears loom and pass, and ideas won't come clear, and meaningless words haunt the mind, and the shudder of nightmare brushes by, and time seems not to move, and it's dark, and nothing happens.

The Story of the Amulet by Edith Nesbit

Aw, very cute! I seem to have missed an installment between Five Children and It and this one -- I'll look for it -- but it also seems each book is pretty much self-contained.

Random thoughts:

• Anthea seems to have turned into Bobby from The Railway Children; I don't remember her being so righteous and self-sacrificing in Five Children.


• I love the occasional flashes of politics, as when the children notice that workers in England are much like slaves in Egypt except they have the vote, which makes them less likely to revolt. I can't decide if Nesbit was being a socialist or just a humanitarian. Then there's various stereotyping, e.g. the stock exchange Jews and their funny accents and long noses. Also very unexpected and interesting.


• I read this one in Hebrew (Marganit series) and the translation's delightful. Unnecessarily archaic, obviously, and loses some of Nesbit's sense of humor, but reads like poetry. If I read some more of these I'm going to get back the pretty Hebrew vocabulary I had as a child.

The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum

OK, these obviously aren't the natural conditions in which to respond to this book: I've heard about it too much, I saw the movie and the cartoon, it's a part of the culture, it's hopelessly confused by the culture with the movie, and, well, I'm an adult (and the "children's" lit I usually read is written for much older children). My pronouncing an aesthetic opinion on The Wizard of Oz feels pretty completely off-topic.

That said: I think I see what Baum is trying to do here, and I think it could be done better. The whole timeless-fairy-tale atmosphere only kicks in two-thirds into the story, once they get to the Wicked Witch of the West and the characters start showing more emotion. Generally, I got the impression that Baum wasn't actually in control of the material (i.e. didn't know exactly what he wanted to do and how to go about it), and perhaps wasn't having enough fun, either. That's about it.

Wow, it's been a while. I did read Pride and Prejudice in the meantime -- see here -- but nothing else. I can't seem to gather up the energy to read anything heavy.

Fortunately, Tzomet Sfarim brought in a load of Wordsworth's new series of low-priced children's books (nice covers, pleasant font and original illustrations at NIS 20 -- not bad!).

The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit

I love it! Very funny and sweet, and the plot is quick and clever. Even the fantastic elements are worked out quite well, i.e., they lead to storylines that tie up quite nicely yet aren't predictable at all. Also, laugh if you will, but the bit with the Ugly-Wuglies actually got me scared. It's still a less serious novel than The Railway Children, but it's not annoyingly careless like Five Children and It; Nesbit seems to have found some respect for fantasy lit with this one.

And hey, a girl character who isn't an angel! I wonder if she's allowed to tell lies and have a temper because she's of the lower classes. *smirk*

A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Incredibly strange book. It starts out as a comedy -- Yankee businessman can't understand the knights and ladies, ha ha -- and doesn't do very well: there are some great jokes but each one is stretched out over 10 times more space than it can really fill. Then it turns into half comedy and half dark social satire that you don't see the point of. In the last third of the book, it starts to get interesting with some sentimental pathos scenes that Twain's pretty good at. Finally (exactly like the Morte Darthur!) it completely shakes off the dullness and explodes with complete tragic chaos that leaves you stunned.

All in all, I didn't enjoy it much. I don't mind when a book has a mental breakdown, especially when the result is so cool, but up until then it's way too long and drawn out. Like everything by Twain.

Fatherland by Robert Harris

After enjoying the psychadelic Man in the High Castle and the comic Making History, I thought it would be interesting to read a "straight" adaptation of the what-if-Hitler-won-the-war idea. Fatherland didn't exactly give me that, because it doesn't explore the world it creates in any real depth, but it was still a good read. Just a solid thriller in an alternate history setting with a dark feel.

Zeppelin count: one (every alt history novel must contain at least one zeppelin). It was a bit of a cheat, though, because it was during a festival of sorts and it might have been a decorative zeppelin.


Before that I read Spin by Robert Charles Wilson but I'm saving my observations for a real review that I promised someone I'd write.

Permutation City by Greg Egan

I can't get into SF books where the idea feels overblown. A universe within a universe within a universe!!1, someone going a gazillion years into the future...It's not that I don't buy it, necessarily; I just don't care. It's too remote from my experience to be relevant to me in any way, and the wildness of it feels immature and distasteful. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. I guess this is how some non-fans feel about the entirety of science fiction.

This, disappointingly, is one of those books. In addition, the characters are two-dimensional and unsympathetic. As I mentioned in the Ort forum, I'm starting to wonder whether Egan is even capable of writing a character that isn't completely socially retarded. I sympathized with his poor creatures and their sad cold relationships in the brilliant Quarantine and Distress, but if he keeps it up in every novel, I'm going to get bored. Humanity as nothing but autists with bad sex lives isn't any more realistic/interesting than Heinlein's endless parade of heroes and barbie dolls.

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

I don't get it. That's it? This book could have been 30 pages long.

The oh-so-learned introduction in the Hebrew edition cheerfully spoils the whole plot while somehow misrepresenting it completely (saying it's a story about academics gone insane during performance of academic work). Smooth.

Science: A History by John Gribbin

I haven't read it through, but I'm not necessarily going to, so I won't wait with the review.

Popular science books generally give the illusion of education while mostly being too "popular" to really teach you anything. Biographies generally pretend to be games of connect-the-dots while really being more like the constellations (someone looks at random stars that look like nothing, and says, Hey, it's a bear!). Science, containing a gazillion short biographies of scientists, has all these problems plus one big extra one: the space restrictions make for extra shallowness.

Still, it works. It might be no deeper than a bunch of Wikipedia entries, but you wouldn't read those Wiki entries in a row; this book gives them a narrative and makes you read on to see what got discovered next. It's pretty readable and always tries to give you a glimpse into the place and period too. It's...cute, if you don't take the biographical assertions too seriously.