Current Non-Genre Reading III

[AuntiePam]

Also finished an excellent crime story set in Argentina : The Secret In Their Eyes by Eduardo Sacherri.

Didn't know this was a book. Thought the movie was excellent.

Just finished The Misremembered Man by Christine McKenna. I was looking for something light. This was described as a "beautifully rendered portrait of life in rural Ireland which charms and delights with its authentic characters and gentle humor" and "a vivid portrayal of the universal search for love." Sounds smarmy and hokey but it turned out to be realistic and funny and quite dark, with flashbacks to a horrific childhood in a Catholic orphanage. I liked it.

Now reading Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis.

[AuntiePam]

Finished Babbitt. The only hurdle was a small one -- getting used to the dated slang in conversations. Gosh, gee, golly, gee whillikers, rats!

"Babbitt" is sometimes code for a glad-handing booster/social climber/status conscious type of conservative businessman, someone who belongs to all the right organizations, drives the right car, lives in the right neighborhood, attends the right church -- someone who doesn't stir the pot or think for himself. George Babbitt is all these things but he's aware enough to be discontented. He knows something is missing in his life. This awareness saves him from being totally despicable and shows him as quite human, and sympathetic.

I think Lewis had fun writing this, especially in showing Babbitt's hypocrisy. At one point, he rails against labor unions as an attack on personal freedom, and in the next breath says that every businessman should be forced to join the Chamber of Commerce.

[Kazz Wylde]

Finished The Secret Keeper! Man that woman can tell a helluva story! One of the best books I've read in awhile!

Awesome surprises and story telling, 1-10 its an 11!, but man she really has some good twists all the way to the end!

[Randy M.]

Finished Babbitt. The only hurdle was a small one -- getting used to the dated slang in conversations. Gosh, gee, golly, gee whillikers, rats!

[...]

Hi, Auntie Pam.

Somehow I missed this back in February.

I suspect that was part of the satire: Innocent expostulations that are definitely rural in a literature that was becoming increasingly urban, and the writers of the time, even Lewis, seemed to be distancing themselves from the rural, looking for a more sophisticated perspective, even as they showed some nostalgia for the land. I think this shows up in Hemingway to a degree, too; and even in somewhat later writers in s.f. like Heinlein and Simak. It's a little surprising to realize how many of the major writers of the time were born in the west, mid-west or south and then moved to urban centers like New York and Chicago. Hemingway, Dashiell Hammett, Sherwood Anderson and James Thurber all come to mind.


Randy M.

[AuntiePam]

Randy, that's an interesting take on the language, and it makes sense.

[algernoninc]

finished the first book of Jack Aubrey / Stephen Maturin maritime adventures during the Napoleonic Wars : Master and Commander by Patrick O'Bryan. Really loved it or the character study and the naval battles - in this book Aubrey received his first command, of a smallish sloop, and is harrasing the commercial shipping off the Catalunia coast. The jargon was often difficult to follow, and some passages are extremely detailed about the minutiae of life aboard ship, but it makes for an immersive experience.

[AuntiePam]

Algernoninc, I've read all the Aubrey/Maturin novels and loved them. I look at them as one huge book. Some books focused on naval engagements, some focused on Aubrey and Maturin's personal lives, but they were all interesting.

I never did get a handle on the jargon and the nautical maneuvering, but that didn't matter.

If you get a chance, watch the movie Master and Commander with Russell Crowe. I've seen it several times -- it's wonderful and Crowe was perfect in the role.

[Rosy Red Sun]

I usually alternate books out of several series that I read at once to keep from getting bored by the same tone and structure that goes throughout a series.

So, right now I am reading (as someone else mentioned) the Aubrey/Maturin Series "The Mauritius Command" and the Jack Reacher Series "61 Hours." I am also reading a few other series, but they are genre.

O'Brian's novels are great studies of the time as Historical Fiction and I love the detail that he goes into with the art and science of sailing.

I love the Jack Reacher Series because the author makes no attempt to have a squeaky clean hero. He is more along the line of an anti-hero or Byronic Hero. These books get a bit of flak from people and even readers claim the series is in their 'guilty pleasure' list.

I don't know why it would be there unless all crime or detective novels are there.