New idiom from The Sun Also Rises: "tight," as in "I can't just stay tight all the time," says the irresistible Lady Ashley or "Brett." It means drunk, which is what Brett, Jake and the other "chaps" in this book are just about all the time. Beware: I may try to reintroduce the word "tight," and it's unlikely to make sense most anywhere, especially considering that tight means something completely different idiomatically now.
My initial impression from this book was that Hemingway dislikes women or generally thinks they're up to no good. It reminds me a lot of the same tone Fitzgerald takes with Daisy in The Great Gatsby (which shouldn't be surprising, since Fitzgerald apparently edited Hemingway). There is one dynamic female character, she is adored by all and screws up everything. I don't hate Brett as a character though, and I don't dislike Hemingway for his portrayal of her, so in general she is tolerable to read.
The characters' anti-semitism is more difficult to read. I am not quite through the book, but I am still unclear why it was necessary for Hemingway to make his most unlikable character, the most abused by his friends, also a Jew. Given more time and resources, I'd look into the theme. Though, I'm about to write about how Hemingway seems to describe things simply for the sake of... describing them. And perhaps that's what he's doing with the anti-semitic remarks, too - perhaps he is describing racism as plain as day, as he saw it in society.
This book's greatness is in the richness of description. The imagery is so vivid; I would love to take the book and travel to Spain on the very same path. The characters go fishing for trout in a lusciously hot part of the country, dipping into the stream water to cool off and sober up. There are lengthy descriptions of bullfighting, sometimes hard to read. Perhaps I have been so carried away reading such ridiculous and delicious things like the Twilight Saga or the Harry Potter series, but I forgot how some authors write rich description just for the sake of ... describing things richly. It is rare (maybe unlikely altogether) to read that from a contemporary or popular author like Stephanie Meyer or JK Rowling. For example, nothing in a Harry Potter book gets described by accident; all of it is somehow weaved into the plot. That's not the case with Hemingway. He describes people and places just for the sake of pure poetic imagery.
Again, not quite done with The Sun Also Rises, but in all, I've enjoyed it. It's been an easy read, and I think it will stick with me much the same as The Great Gatsby. At some point, when I've read more of the books on this list, I'll stick this Hemingway in a list of my own rankings... and we'll see how it stacks up.
Next, I read Rushdie's Midnight's Children.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
My Very Own Keen Reading List
I took the TIME 100, the Modern Library and The Guardian's 100, cross-referenced them in Excel and made my own list (as some of you suggested). Miraculously, it resulted in 50 books. All either appear on two or all three of the lists.
The books that appear on all three lists are: Orwell's 1984; Ellison's The Invisible Man; Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie,Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse; Nabokov, Lolita; and The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner.
I sadly admit that out of these six, I have only read one, and out of the 50, I've read seven. And all of those readings happened more than 10 years ago, with the exception of The Great Gatsby, which I read last year (for the first time, if you can believe it!).
I also want to note that Joyce's Ulysses appears on two of the lists, but I've read it once, and once is more than enough. Nor will I acknowledge its place on this list. This is, after all, my list now -- and I say Ulysses doesn't get to be on it.
As for the other 50 books, I really liked Molly's suggestion of taking recommendations from friends about a book that changed their lives. Fair warning: I will probably nix anything I've already read for the latter 50. For example, I know someone will say Pride and Prejudice is a must-read, for example. It is one of my favorite books of all time, but I have read it too many times already.
One more fairly significant thing: I want to read all or most of these by borrowing from the library. I already learned the O'Hara novel isn't even in the Garfield County Library System, which sort of shocks me. The county can order it from Denver, but I am going to talk to the librarian and see if I can purchase & donate whatever books are missing.
This week, I'll write about my love of old library books, also about The Sun Also Rises, which I'm halfway through already.
A Clockwork Orange | Anthony Burgess |
A Dance to the Music of Time | Anthony Powell |
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter | Carson McCullers |
Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe |
Sons and Lovers | DH Lawrence |
The Golden Notebook | Doris Lessing |
Ragtime | E.L. Doctorow |
A Passage to India | E.M. Forster |
The Sun Also Rises | Ernest Hemingway |
Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh |
A Handful of Dust | Evelyn Waugh |
The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
Animal Farm | George Orwell |
1984 | George Orwell |
The Heart of the Matter | Graham Greene |
Loving | Henry Green |
Tropic of Cancer | Henry Miller |
Under the Net | Iris Murdoch |
The Catcher in the Rye | J.D. Salinger |
On the Road | Jack Kerouac |
Go Tell it on the Mountain | James Baldwin |
Deliverance | James Dickey |
Wide Sargasso Sea | Jean Rhys |
Appointment in Samarra | John O'Hara |
The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck |
Nostromo | Joseph Conrad |
Catch-22 | Joseph Heller |
Slaughterhouse Five | Kurt Vonnegut |
Under the Volcano | Malcolm Lowry |
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie | Muriel Spark |
The Day of the Locust | Nathanael West |
The Sheltering Sky | Paul Bowles |
Invisible Man | Ralph Ellison |
Native Son | Richard Wright |
I, Claudius | Robert Graves |
All the King's Men | Robert Penn Warren |
Midnight's Children | Salman Rushdie |
The Adventures of Augie March | Saul Bellow |
An American Tragedy | Theodore Dreiser |
The Bridge of San Luis Rey | Thornton Wilder |
Beloved | Toni Morrison |
A House for Mr. Biswas | V.S. Naipaul |
To the Lighthouse | Virginia Woolf |
Mrs. Dalloway | Virginia Woolf |
Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov |
Pale Fire | Vladimir Nabokov |
The Moviegoer | Walker Percy |
Death Comes for the Archbishop | Willa Cather |
The Sound and the Fury | William Faulkner |
Lord of the Flies | William Golding |
The books that appear on all three lists are: Orwell's 1984; Ellison's The Invisible Man; Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie,Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse; Nabokov, Lolita; and The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner.
I sadly admit that out of these six, I have only read one, and out of the 50, I've read seven. And all of those readings happened more than 10 years ago, with the exception of The Great Gatsby, which I read last year (for the first time, if you can believe it!).
I also want to note that Joyce's Ulysses appears on two of the lists, but I've read it once, and once is more than enough. Nor will I acknowledge its place on this list. This is, after all, my list now -- and I say Ulysses doesn't get to be on it.
As for the other 50 books, I really liked Molly's suggestion of taking recommendations from friends about a book that changed their lives. Fair warning: I will probably nix anything I've already read for the latter 50. For example, I know someone will say Pride and Prejudice is a must-read, for example. It is one of my favorite books of all time, but I have read it too many times already.
One more fairly significant thing: I want to read all or most of these by borrowing from the library. I already learned the O'Hara novel isn't even in the Garfield County Library System, which sort of shocks me. The county can order it from Denver, but I am going to talk to the librarian and see if I can purchase & donate whatever books are missing.
This week, I'll write about my love of old library books, also about The Sun Also Rises, which I'm halfway through already.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The Sun Also Rises
I am not a morning person. Yet I am drinking a cup of Waitrose Earl Grey tea at 6:30 am on a Saturday morning. Mushu, my pug, is trying to wedge his head between my lap and the laptop. The dogs and I are all wondering why we are up so early. And to be totally honest, I'm not sure. Something feels unsettled inside me, though. I haven't been able to sleep. You know the feeling.
So I decided this morning, while hopelessly keeping my eyes closed in bed, that I would give myself a project for distraction. I'm going to read 100 of "the best books," whatever that means. There are so many lists out there that I'm not sure which one I will use - and that is what this first post is about. I'll blog as I read because ever since I left college, I've missed writing about books. As some of you know, I have very little patience for a book that bores me, so though I will keep on reading, I also promise to frankly share my feelings about the books right here.
I realize this is a somewhat meaningless project for anyone but myself, but I have enough book-loving friends that I doubt I'll have trouble finding some moral support in the endeavor. And, like many bloggers before me who keep navel-gazing diaries online, I feel restless right now and need some psudo-intellectual centering.
It shouldn't surprise me that there are so many "top 100" lists online, but I am a bit baffled. The lists come from odd sources, also respected ones, and all of them are varied. Amazon.com readers don't hesitate to share their opinions on the best books. The whole concept of "Important Thing You Need to Do Before You Die" has never appealed to me though.
So here are the lists up for consideration. My initial idea was to read classics - which would mean re-reading some and picking up others for the first time (perhaps embarassingly for an English major). But I sort of love the Time list and NPR's oddball beachreads appeals to me too. I'm really just undertaking the project to help me focus - and as an amusing distraction. I'm not very good at distracting myself for very long unless I have a real "project" and a goal. So here are the lists up for consideration:
TIME's best English-language novels from 1923 to the present
Modern Library's 100 best novels, parallel to the site's readers' list of the 100 best
The Guardian's top 100 books of all time
NPR's Audience Picks: 100 best beach books ever
So I decided this morning, while hopelessly keeping my eyes closed in bed, that I would give myself a project for distraction. I'm going to read 100 of "the best books," whatever that means. There are so many lists out there that I'm not sure which one I will use - and that is what this first post is about. I'll blog as I read because ever since I left college, I've missed writing about books. As some of you know, I have very little patience for a book that bores me, so though I will keep on reading, I also promise to frankly share my feelings about the books right here.
I realize this is a somewhat meaningless project for anyone but myself, but I have enough book-loving friends that I doubt I'll have trouble finding some moral support in the endeavor. And, like many bloggers before me who keep navel-gazing diaries online, I feel restless right now and need some psudo-intellectual centering.
It shouldn't surprise me that there are so many "top 100" lists online, but I am a bit baffled. The lists come from odd sources, also respected ones, and all of them are varied. Amazon.com readers don't hesitate to share their opinions on the best books. The whole concept of "Important Thing You Need to Do Before You Die" has never appealed to me though.
So here are the lists up for consideration. My initial idea was to read classics - which would mean re-reading some and picking up others for the first time (perhaps embarassingly for an English major). But I sort of love the Time list and NPR's oddball beachreads appeals to me too. I'm really just undertaking the project to help me focus - and as an amusing distraction. I'm not very good at distracting myself for very long unless I have a real "project" and a goal. So here are the lists up for consideration:
TIME's best English-language novels from 1923 to the present
Modern Library's 100 best novels, parallel to the site's readers' list of the 100 best
The Guardian's top 100 books of all time
NPR's Audience Picks: 100 best beach books ever
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