Book Reviews
last updated April 25th, 2001
January:
February:
March:
The Needle's Eye, by Margaret Drabble. I was first introduced to this wonderful British author through my English course, where we read The Gates of Ivory. I've since begun looking for anything and everything by her, and this novel was my most recent find. I found it engrossing the whole way through, though it took a little longer to become "unputdownable" than did the other two I've read by her.
American Buffalo, by David Mamet. I first heard of Mamet on a recent trip to Toronto, where I studied at Second City for a few days. They had a newsletter there, containing an article on this playwrite which I found rather interesting. It wasn't until I got home and began looking through the various books in my reading stack that I realized I owned a copy of one of his plays.
After-note: I withdraw my opinion of the ending. After spending some time thinking about it, I've decided that it is sufficiently thought provoking. Read it.
The Life and Death of King John, by William Shakespeare. I'm a huge Shakespeare fanatic. I've been working my way through his stuff for a while now, starting with A Midsummer Night's Dream back when I was fourteen.
This is the worst play I've ever read. It was incredibly juvenille in its writing, with a few spots of a sort of brilliance here and there. They were interesting, but not enough to redeam the big picture. As I read it, I saw it more like a game played by little kids than as a serious, dramatic play. "Hey, let's go over here!" "Hey, how 'bout I suggest that our kids get married, right out of the blue, to confuse everyone?" "Hey, let's go over there now!" Nothing fit together well at all.
From a playwrite's perspective, the division of Acts and Scenes was all wrong. The way I see it, an Act takes place all in one setting, unless little things can be changed quickly to form a diferent setting without disrupting the flow of the play. (A good example of this is the production of Camelot currently touring around Canada. Through the use of six golden gates, lighting, and a few chairs brought in by prop people dressed as servants, they were able to quickly and effectively change scenes without making the audience wait or confusing the situation). Nearly every scene, we're presented with a different setting. First, we're in a room of the castle; then we're on a battle field; then we're in a tent; then we're in another room... it kept going on and on and on. I can see why no one bothers to stage this play anymore; not only is the writing terrible, but the set changes are practically un-doable! Not recommended at all. Read only if - like me - you've got a strange thing for all the works attributed to Shakespeare, and must read everything he's ever written. Me, I'm gonna pretend this was by someone else, and accidentally got labeled as a Shakespearian play by some strage mix-up back in the fifteenth century.
Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. I first read this book in Grade Twelve English, when we were told we had to have it read for some serious discussions after the Christmas holidays. I read it the morning it was due, and loved it. I was incredibly disappointed to find that our teacher had no intention of really doing anything with it. My knowledge and understanding of the play is yet untapped by an outside source.
Hmm... what can I say about it? It's a remarkably easy story to read. The pages fly by, and the situations constantly keep the reader entertained and wanting more. Of course, 99.9% of readers know, going into it, that Jekyl and Hyde are one and the same, (*gasp*!), but it's still quite interesting to watch Mr. Utterson and everyone else figure it out. Highly recommended.
The Republic of Love, by Carol Shields. Yet another English class offering. I began it somewhat skeptically, as these pieces of modern literature, where middle aged people find themselves through their romances with soul mates, all sort of blend together after a while. I really have to wonder why modern authors can't think of anything better to work with. It's all middle-aged romances of discovery and severe emotional problems, (if not both), in modern literature these days. Blah.
This one was surprisingly good. As was the case with Jekyl and Hyde, the pages flew by, and almost seemed to read themselves. I was shocked to find that I actually cared about the characters as they went through their token "rough time". The fact that it was set in my city also helped keep it interesting for me. I could read it and say, "Hey, I drive by that place on my way to school!" or "My friend Tricia lives on that street!" Things like that always keep books more or less interesting, though I can't exactly imagine what someone who doesn't live here would find scintillating about central Manitoba. It's quite dull here. Recommended, none the less.
Donut Shop Lovers, by Melissa Steele. Yet another English class book about modern times and modern people. This one contains a goodly amount of very modern short stories about the ways in which people react with one another. Though I wouldn't want to be reading this thing all the time, I like it in small doses, and this book is the perfect size. 148 pages of 14 short stories about middle class people who do things. There's something for every modern story lover, I guess: a couple about kidnapping your children, one about marrying, one about liking books and not liking work, another about having sex for the first time... modern stuff like that, and just the right amount of it. Highly recommended. This book will make you think.
Belinda, by Anne Rice, writing as Anne Rampling. This book cost me twelve dollars. That's entirely too much to pay for a paperback. I wouldn't have bought it if I hadn't had a gift certificate.
The Wooing of a Lady, by Steven Bernstead. Another local novel. I dug it out of my basement and, as I like to give every book that comes into my possetion a try, read it. It was nothing special, though I guess it worked well as a little diversion in between brilliant books. I didn't really get into it at all, and found a lot of the situations to be rather pointless. Stuff happened, but there was never really any reason for it. I suppose if you looked at the whole thing in terms of what I like to call "ultra-modern fiction", it's very thought provoking... that's still stretching it a bit, though. No deep psychological things, no little tricks with words and phrases... no real substance. I doubt you'd be able to find a copy of it anyways, even if I were to recomend it. Let's leave it at that.
Firebird, by Mercedes Lackey. The librarian of the school I went to for Junior High, (middle school to you Americans), got me hooked on this author, but up until this book I hadn't read anything by her since Grade Ten. I've got a fair number of her books in my personal library, and remembered enjoying this one when I first read it around four years ago, so I decided to give it another go. It was every bit as good the second time around as the first, and I got through it in record time. Mercedes Lackey does a great re-telling of what I understand to be a Russian faerie tale with this book. The characterization's there, the setting is believable, the situations in which the characters find themselves are interesting to read about, and there's a touch of sadness. Brilliant. Just brilliant. This one's going on my "List of Books to be Re-Read Every Year". Highly recommended.
Treason, by Orson Scott Card. Another one of those "found it somewhere and decided to read it" books. I think I bought this one from the library, back when it wasn't an arm and a leg for a bag of used books there. Unlike the last book of this catagory, it was great. I enjoyed it very much. There wasn't anything terribly deep in it, but the characters and situations were enough to keep me interested and get me reading at a good speed. I finished it in around a day, I guess, which's pretty good for me. Recommended.
Easy to Kill, by Agatha Christie. My first mystery of the year! There's something about mysteries that I really like. Agatha Christie's in particular are excellent. I really enjoy trying to second guess her. This time, I suceeded. I went into the thing with two subjects, added a third later on, and ended up guessing correctly. But anyways...
The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan. Another series my Junior High librarian, (with some help from my Grade Seven L.A. teacher), introduced me to. I've got the entire series now, with the exception of the most recent one, and I decided that it'd be a good idea if I did some re-reading, so that I can get through the two most recent ones. I'm very, very glad I did. For those few fans of fantasy who've never sampled this series, do. You won't be disappointed. It's long, yes, but that doesn't take anything away from the reading of it. The characters leap off the pages, the situations they find themselves in make you feel for them, and the whole thing has this great... great ambience to it, you know? It's been around six years since I last read this book, so I found it to be very much like reading it for the first time. I remembered little things here and there, but not enough to make it so that I could accurately predict what would be happening next. I pretty much devoured it, (all eight hundred pages of it), and would highly recommend that anyone who hasn't already done so grab themselves a copy and give it a try. Start with this one; it's the first, and I imagine it would ruin the experience if you knew some of the events to come before they actually happened. (Not that certain ones aren't easy to guess at, of course...) Highly recommended.
Big Trouble, by Dave Barry. I'm a big fan of Dave Barry's articles and books on babies, so I figured I'd give his "actual novel" a try. It was fairly entertaining, I guess, but not quite what I was looking for. The funny parts could have been a big funnier, and the story as a whole could have been told with greater attention to detail. As it is, I felt it was a little too short for the full book experience. Recomended for Dave Barry fans and those who like twisted humor stories.
The Great Hunt, by Robert Jordan. I decided, after going through the first one again, that I wanted to get to this next one right away. (The Dave Barry book stuck in between doesn't count; it took almost no time to read). I ended up being very, very glad that I did. I was reading it at a rate of two or three hundred pages per day, which I consider rather good, and was even more enthralled with it than I was with the first one. Everything started to come together; new ideas were introduced, while enough old ones were kept to provide some continuity. I could barely stand to put it down. Same essential comments as the first, otherwise. Very highly recomended.
The Dragon Reborn, by Robert Jordan. Well, I finished the above in the middle of lunch hour on my Uni day, and had to run down to the school library to borrow this one so's I'd have something to read for the rest of the day. It all worked out fine, and I went through this one in three days, a tremendous rate for me. Of course, I loved the thing; I especially enjoyed how the focus was transfered from Rand to Perrin and Mat in this volume. It gave the reader a chance to get more in touch with these two major characters, you know? Highly recommended.
The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison. A school book I had to read. I didn't enjoy it overly while I was actually reading it. I didn't feel that the characters were portrayed in such a way that I could really relate to them and come to feel for them when they encountered tragedy. Apparently, I'm the only person who feels this way; everyone else I've talked to about it has said they thoguht it was very powerful. I came to feel a bit more strongly about it as I prepared my essay with regards to the content, but I think this was largely because of my own opinions on certain topics, not the author's portrayal of events. Not recommended, not discouraged.
The Shadow Rising, by Robert Jordan. This one took me a surprisingly long time to get through, though I suppose I was quite busy with the school musical around the time that I read it. It's been a while since then, and I don't remember any specific things I noticed about this book, but I'm sure I enjoyed it. Robert Jordan's stuff is always great. Same essential comments as what's come before, I'm sure. Highly recommended.
The Fires of Heaven, by Robert Jordan. I always remember the first time I went through this book. I was sick, and I read almost the whole thing in one day. This time, it took me six days in paperback; not a bad amount of time, though not so well as my speed with previous books. As was the case with the above, this was not due to any lack of quality on the part of the book. School musicals take a lot of time, you know, and it's so hard to concentrate when you're trying to listen for the director to call you up on stage while you're reading. I did manage to finish it, though, and enjoyed it immensely. (I should take some time to learn how to actually spell that word...) As always, the ending was good enough to make me want to continue on to the next volume, and the emotions ran high throughout the entire thing. Highly recommended.
The Sandman: book of dreams, edited by Neil Gaiman. Various authors contributed to this anthology of stories related to the world of the Sandman, and I enjoyed every one of them. Though I didn't always fully understand the stories, having not yet read the whole of the Sandman library, each one kept my interest and made me eager for more of the series itself. What more can I say about the book, really? It was great. Any Sandman fan should grab themselves a copy. Highly recommended.
Lord of Chaos, by Robert Jordan. Yet another masterpiece. This volume raised some very interesting issues, and added to the plot a great deal. I'm particularily eager to find out who Osan'gar and Asan'gar used to be, though of course I've already got my suspicions. I found the politics of this one to be well written, with regards to the two Towers, etc., and can't remember much else that I wanted to say regarding it. Highly recommended.
The only thing that really bothered me about this novel was the treatment of the three children. Their parents were constantly hitting them and shouting at them, which seemed completely unacceptable to me. Once I stopped and thought about it, however, I realized that, though it's far from desirable in a parent of our current times, it was exactly what was expected when this book was written. Still not a nice thing, but I guess we're stuck with it. Can't change the past.
The ending of the novel didn't quite live up to the standards set by the rest of the novel, either. Though I suppose it's servicable and justified and all that, I was expecting something a little more heart-wrenching. I've probably just been reading too many good tradedies, though. *shrug* I'd highly recommend this excellent piece of fiction, and anything else by the same author that you may be able to find.
I picked American Buffalo up at a library book sale about two years ago, and promptly forgot about it. I spent a few hours reading it a day or so ago, and was was pleasantly surprised. It's a great, uncensored piece of playwriting, with interesting ideas and, (in some places), awfull grammar, dealing with crime. (Picture "The Sopranos" in play form). I quite enjoyed it.
The ending was awfull. (Two terrible endings in a row; just my luck!) It didn't live up to the rest of the play at all. Nothing was really resolved, nothing much was left for the audience/reader to think about... it just kind of ended all of a sudden. I was disappointed.
If you don't mind awfull endings, (I'm not big on them myself; I think an ending can make or break a piece of writing), and lots of profanity, I'd suggest you check this out. I'll be looking for some more of Mamet's plays now. Hopefully the rest have better endings.
Thank goodness I did! It may have been expensive, but this book was worth every penny. It's always the ones I don't expect to like too much that I really end up getting into. The story captured me right away; I made it around fifteen pages in without even looking at the clock or the page number. That's pretty good, for me. I stayed that absorbed right until the last page. The characters grabbed me instantly - always a great quality in a book - and I really and truly cared about what was happening to them. It takes a great author to do that for a reader. The ending could've been a little cleaner, but that's a minor thing when compared to the rest of the book. Highly recommended. Controversial subject matter.
