Sunday, August 28, 2005
The Historian
So I finally finished The Historian. The key word there is FINALLY. That is one overlong book. I enjoyed it, but with many caveats. Its length isn't necessarily one of them; I certainly have enjoyed other 642-page books. But this one didn't read quickly. Author Elizabeth Kostova attempted to use numerous voices--the unnamed narrator, the narrator's father, mother, and the narrator's father's professor, to name a few--but she didn't distinguish between them.
In a review in The Guardian UK, Jane Stevenson notes that "Kostova is a whiz at storytelling and narrative pace, and she can write atmospheric descriptions of place, but she has no great sense of the location of language within time, and not much talent for impersonation. Unfortunately, the shape of her story commits her to a great deal of it. That there is no distinction between the narrator's voice and exposition is legitimate, since the narrator is recounting the events of 1972 from the standpoint of 2008, but the father's voice is identical, which is bad, and so is the voice of an Oxonian Englishman in 1930, which is ludicrous." Indeed, both the narrator's father and the narrator's professor end up sounding like David Hyde Pierce's Niles Crane--fussy, prolix, and effeminate: to put it bluntly, a wuss who would never have captured the heart of the enigmatic, edgy Helen.
As well, Kostova has said that she wanted the excitement of research to equal criminal forensics. But the research in The Historian is spotty and drawn-out. The protagonists travel from the United States to England, France, Istanbul, Bulgaria, and Romania through all time periods and at each step uncover such infinitesimally small pieces of information that the long treks become just a seemingly endless series of anticlimaxes. The real climax of the book is over in a blink, almost besides the point. (If you want a book where research is exciting, read Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II, Robert Kurson's fast-paced non-fiction account of two divers who identified a mysterious wreck off the coast of New Jersey. Kurson makes going through pages of archives positively thrilling.)
That said, Kostova writes beautifully about place and scene. The book is richly and gorgeously visual, which is no small feat. Her descriptive art carried me most of the way through this multi-generational tale, but would have been better served by judicious editorial cuts.
On deck
Blonde Lightning, by the most-deserving-of-a-best-seller Terrill Lee Lankford; sequel to the very excellent Earthquake Weather
Featured books (if all four book covers don't appear please refresh your screen)
In a review in The Guardian UK, Jane Stevenson notes that "Kostova is a whiz at storytelling and narrative pace, and she can write atmospheric descriptions of place, but she has no great sense of the location of language within time, and not much talent for impersonation. Unfortunately, the shape of her story commits her to a great deal of it. That there is no distinction between the narrator's voice and exposition is legitimate, since the narrator is recounting the events of 1972 from the standpoint of 2008, but the father's voice is identical, which is bad, and so is the voice of an Oxonian Englishman in 1930, which is ludicrous." Indeed, both the narrator's father and the narrator's professor end up sounding like David Hyde Pierce's Niles Crane--fussy, prolix, and effeminate: to put it bluntly, a wuss who would never have captured the heart of the enigmatic, edgy Helen.
As well, Kostova has said that she wanted the excitement of research to equal criminal forensics. But the research in The Historian is spotty and drawn-out. The protagonists travel from the United States to England, France, Istanbul, Bulgaria, and Romania through all time periods and at each step uncover such infinitesimally small pieces of information that the long treks become just a seemingly endless series of anticlimaxes. The real climax of the book is over in a blink, almost besides the point. (If you want a book where research is exciting, read Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II, Robert Kurson's fast-paced non-fiction account of two divers who identified a mysterious wreck off the coast of New Jersey. Kurson makes going through pages of archives positively thrilling.)
That said, Kostova writes beautifully about place and scene. The book is richly and gorgeously visual, which is no small feat. Her descriptive art carried me most of the way through this multi-generational tale, but would have been better served by judicious editorial cuts.
On deck
Blonde Lightning, by the most-deserving-of-a-best-seller Terrill Lee Lankford; sequel to the very excellent Earthquake Weather
Featured books (if all four book covers don't appear please refresh your screen)
Saturday, August 27, 2005
To read or not to read, redux
As part of this blog's massive update, I wanted to repost a couple of entries from my political/cultural rant, The Obstinate Eye, called To read or not to read, part I and part II (I know, I know, I'm so clever.)
July 8 and 9, 2004
You know things are really bad when a good mystery just won't do it anymore. You know, to take your mind off the drudgery, cruelty, mean-spiritedness of what passes for news and politics.
I love a good mystery. Michael Connelly, Elizabeth George, Nevada Barr, Sue Grafton, Donald Harstad, Val McDermid. Tough, smart, and often witty protagonists making the world safe, if sometimes a bit sadder.
I just finished a really good one, Earthquake Weather, by Terrill Lee Lankford, a hard-boiled Hollywood mystery with more than a taste of Raymond Chandler.
But murder most foul just wasn't, well, foul enough to drown out the bleak white noise of everyday life. I need a stronger hit these days. Like apocalyptic weather, reptilian aliens, ghosts, ghouls, things that not only go bump but also crash in the night. Anything strong enough to make me glad to be in this dimension--er, world.
As I was saying, in a normal world, the more mundane of mysteries--the serial killers, the sexual predators, the vengeful apprentice or jealous spouse--would be enough to make me feel that all's right with the world, that the ingenious, intrepid detective or private eye or special agent can get the bad guy.
But now even the mysteriously sinister anthropomorphic house, imbued with the occult for generations, is losing its abiity to suspend my disbelief. There's just nothing more horrifying than what's going on in the news. The Haunting of Hill House? The scariest book ever written? A picnic. The unreliable narrator? Don't make me laugh--what we are living with now is the ultimate example of an unreliable narrator.
The Blair Witch Project, yeah, that could be scary--if you renamed it The Bush White House Project.
I want my fun reading back! Vote the scary man out of office!
Featured books
July 8 and 9, 2004
You know things are really bad when a good mystery just won't do it anymore. You know, to take your mind off the drudgery, cruelty, mean-spiritedness of what passes for news and politics.
I love a good mystery. Michael Connelly, Elizabeth George, Nevada Barr, Sue Grafton, Donald Harstad, Val McDermid. Tough, smart, and often witty protagonists making the world safe, if sometimes a bit sadder.
I just finished a really good one, Earthquake Weather, by Terrill Lee Lankford, a hard-boiled Hollywood mystery with more than a taste of Raymond Chandler.
But murder most foul just wasn't, well, foul enough to drown out the bleak white noise of everyday life. I need a stronger hit these days. Like apocalyptic weather, reptilian aliens, ghosts, ghouls, things that not only go bump but also crash in the night. Anything strong enough to make me glad to be in this dimension--er, world.
As I was saying, in a normal world, the more mundane of mysteries--the serial killers, the sexual predators, the vengeful apprentice or jealous spouse--would be enough to make me feel that all's right with the world, that the ingenious, intrepid detective or private eye or special agent can get the bad guy.
But now even the mysteriously sinister anthropomorphic house, imbued with the occult for generations, is losing its abiity to suspend my disbelief. There's just nothing more horrifying than what's going on in the news. The Haunting of Hill House? The scariest book ever written? A picnic. The unreliable narrator? Don't make me laugh--what we are living with now is the ultimate example of an unreliable narrator.
The Blair Witch Project, yeah, that could be scary--if you renamed it The Bush White House Project.
I want my fun reading back! Vote the scary man out of office!
Featured books
