EDF book review, recommendations, etc - the mbillie edition

[Kneel B4 Zod]

[ QUOTE ]
Can you elaborate on The Blind Side? I just finished Moneyball and really enjoyed it.

[/ QUOTE ]

it's 70% the story of a ghetto black kid adopted by a rich white Methodist family, and his rapid rise as an elite Left Tackle prospect, and 30% about the emergence of the Left Tackle as a critical spot in the NFL/college.

it's a good read, much less strategic/analytical than Moneyball, more of a heartwarming story

[SlowHabit]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Can you elaborate on The Blind Side? I just finished Moneyball and really enjoyed it.

[/ QUOTE ]

it's 70% the story of a ghetto black kid adopted by a rich white Methodist family, and his rapid rise as an elite Left Tackle prospect, and 30% about the emergence of the Left Tackle as a critical spot in the NFL/college.

it's a good read, much less strategic/analytical than Moneyball, more of a heartwarming story

[/ QUOTE ]
This is true.

Both books are great but I think I would pick "The Blind Side" over "Moneyball" if I have to make a choice. The reason is because "The Blind Side" made me feel fortunate about my life and taught me how to be humble.

A side comment: I hope Michael Lewis writes a book about basketball. OMG. It will probably be my favorite book of all time.

[Kimbell175113]

Okay, I just read <u>The Bell Jar</u>, after billie's recommendation. It was wonderfully written: restrained, clean, even a little bit funny (I'm wondering if anyone else thought this, or if I'm just weird). Not at all what I was expecting. I want to just sit down and read it again.

[slickpoppa]

Great thread mbillie. I was actually just thinking of starting a book thread because I was in need of recs, but I just ordered three books from this thread.

Here are some books I've read recently and brief reviews. I suck at reviewing books, but here I go anyway:

Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
This is one of the best books I've ever read. It takes place in 1980s Manhattan and the main character, Sherman McCoy, is a Wall Street bond trader and self-styled "master of the universe." The plot centers around an incident in which Sherman and his mistress hit and run a black teenager in the Bronx. When a witness comes forward saying that the teenager was hit by a white guy driving Mercedes, the class and racial overtones of the story generate a media circus. The real genius of this novel is the way in which Wolfe weaves together the stories of so many characters, ranging from Larry Kramer, the young prosecutor assigned to the case, to Reverend Bacon, the Al Sharpton clone who stokes the racial outrage of the NYC black community, to Peter Fallow, the perpetually drunk and freeloading journalist who breaks the story, and of course to Sherman himself. I love how Wolfe goes into great and humorous detail describing the often incredibly superficial and vain thoughts of not only Sherman, but of all the characters.
5/5

Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis
I read this after Bonfire of the Vanities because of its similar theme and style. It's a nonfiction account of Michael Lewis' experiences working as a bond trader/salesman at Salomon Brothers in the 1980s. This book does a pretty good job of chronicling the evolution of finance and portraying life on Wall Street in the 1980s, but I was kind of disappointed given how many people had raved about it to me. I had heard that the book was supposed to be incredibly funny, but I found the humor to be too forced. Anyway, this is a decent book, but doesn't live up to the hype in my opinion.
3.5/5

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
This book was a fun read and different from most books. It's written from the perspective of a young autistic boy who's investigating the murder of his neighbor's dog. It's kind of hard to describe why I liked this book, other than that it's pretty funny and is written from a very interesting perspective.
4/5

I'll maybe review some of the following, all of which I recommend, if I have time:
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Disgrace by JM Coetzee
The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin

[shemp]

Re Saramago. I recommend him whenever I see these threads. I think "Balthusar and Blimunda" and "The History of the Seige of Lisbon" are masterpieces. And I like the rest to varying degrees (I've read all of his fiction which has been translated to English).

A handful of people have recommended "The Corrections" to me, so I'll probably read that next.

[Subfallen]

[ QUOTE ]

<u>Special Topics in Calamity Physics</u>: Marisha Pessl's first novel...a Nabokovian high school murder mystery.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm going to have to go ahead and...um...disagree with you on that one.

Most of the time Special Topics seems just an elaborate excuse to deploy a lifetime's store of simile and metaphor. (Which Pessl undoubtedly accumulated on yellow legal pad.) Her prose is jarringly active; her characters are in constant paroxysm, over-acting even for caricatures. Nabokov knew that life mostly happens <u>to us</u>, while Pessl brings "self-determination" explicitly out of the subtext and into mawkish lectures delivered by both Dad and Blue.

Now perhaps all the "grand themes" from "the Western canon" would be bearable if either author or character actually understood them. But Blue takes art like a shortcut to a superiority complex, demeaning and dehumanizing an endless series of minor characters who serve little purpose except as targets for her wit. Never mind that art and science's greatest heights have been scaled to <u>redeem</u> the common man---Pessl just sees new perches from which to spit on him.

Of course, like all insecure "visionaries" who desperately need the world to notice their grand posturing (Kierkegaard, 1843), both Dad and Blue really long for the admiration of the wretched masses. Captive audiences, esoteric awards, valedictorian honors, clique membership: these are the top values for our heroes.

Most disastrously, the tone and style of Blue's dialogue (dry, manufactured) exactly contrapose her internal monologue (overwrought, quirky). In a first-person narrative, this is unforgivable. Nothing here, nothing, "cries truth from the blood" (Nietzsche, 1883). Special Topics in Calamity Physics is just-readable fluff with a horizontal plot line,

Final Rating: 2.5/5 Stars

And just to emphasize how inapt the Nabokov comparison really is...

Pessl: "As I read the startling details about Catherine Baker's life...I started sprinting like an Errand Boy all the way back to that conversation with her, when I was alone at her house, retrieving her every word, expression and gesture, and when I dumped that splintered cargo at my feet (something 'night,' police officer, The Gone), I turned around and sprinted for more." (Special Topics)

Nabokov: "A breeze from wonderland had begun to affect my thoughts, and now they seemed couched in italics, as if the surface reflecting them were wrinkled by the phantasm of that breeze. Time and again my consciousness folded the wrong way, my shuffling body entered the sphere of sleep, shuffled out again, and once or twice I caught myself drifting into a melancholy snore. Mists of tenderness enfolded mountains of longing." (Lolita)

[Subfallen]

Oh, and:

<u>Being and Time</u>. Martin Heidegger (trans. Macquarrie &amp; Robinson)

Unreadable, first 300 pages are surreally trite throw-away,

Final Rating: 0/5 Stars

[Kimbell175113]

Well, you edited it out in your [quote], but I said "commonly described as a Nabokovian..." and that is inarguable since every reviewer mentions it. A lot of them disagree for the same reasons you do, but I don't think you can fault for me for throwing the word in there when every other mention of Special Topics does as well.

[Subfallen]

Oh, my bad, I hadn't read any other reviews of the book.

[Kimbell175113]

As for your broader criticism, I think my main explanation (or excuse) is that the book is about, and narrated by, a sixteen-year-old. Of course she doesn't understand the grand themes, of course she wants to be in the cool cliques, of course she has a superiority complex. But I never got the feeling that the book is telling us that she is correct. In my mind, the Final Exam at the end is the book's final and clearest way of pulling away from Blue, of analyzing her faults, and those of all the characters. It appears as though I got a different sense from a lot of the book than you did, though.