henna day post / books
Apr. 6th, 2014 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynnegaIt is Henna Day, on a warmish Los Angeles day. We have had a spate of unseasonably cool (for us) weather, and are apparently about to have a mini heatwave. So long as we keep not having more earthquakes, I'm okay with this.
Once again I have not posted here in nearly a month, though I keep meaning to post about books. A few books I have recently finished reading:
Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson. This is early Jackson, and she hasn't quite worked out her style yet. The novel (mostly set at a college supposedly based on Bennington) doesn't quite work as a narrative, especially compared to the ultra-propulsive style of, say, The Haunting of Hill House. Weirdly, the book suddenly kicks into Quintessential Jackson, with bonus paranoia, in the last thirty pages or so. The book is peppered with some amazing set-pieces, like this one about the posters at a movie theater: "One of the pictures showed a glorious scene between a man in a cowboy hat and uncomfortable pistols, who backed against a door to face a darker, equally weaponful villain; in the background a damsel wrung her hands and all three seemed to turn anxiously to the camera, which alone could justify the violent emotions they ravished themselves to feel. It was plain from the picture that it was near the end of the day; the sun was setting dramatically outside the backdrop window; the hero had the look of one who would shortly remove his guns and his spurs and go home in a car he had bought but could not afford; the heroine seemed to be thinking, under her beautiful look of fear and concern, that perhaps she should keep the children out of school until this chicken-pox scare was over." (Weaponful is my new favorite word.)
Death in Midsummer and Other Stories by Yukio Mishima (loaned to me by Lyman). "Patriotism," in which an army officer and his wife have sex for the last time and then commit ritual suicide, is probably the story that stood out most for me, though I found it hard to read. A story I liked a lot was "Onnagata," about the infatuation of a kabuki actor for the clueless director of his latest play.
The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley. I am a huge fan of Paley's later short story collections (Enormous Changes at the Last Minute and Later the Same Day), but in the past I bounced off her first book (aside from a few stories like "Goodbye and Good Luck"). I finally made it through the whole book, and I see why I bounced off. Unlike Shirley Jackson, Paley nailed down her style early on, but it took her awhile to fully figure out her subject matter and, maybe more importantly, her approach toward her subjects. Or maybe it's that Paley succeeds most fully as a writer of middle-aged and old characters, rather than young ones.
Books I'm reading at the moment include: Hild by Nicola Griffith, Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire, and The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino.
Once again I have not posted here in nearly a month, though I keep meaning to post about books. A few books I have recently finished reading:
Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson. This is early Jackson, and she hasn't quite worked out her style yet. The novel (mostly set at a college supposedly based on Bennington) doesn't quite work as a narrative, especially compared to the ultra-propulsive style of, say, The Haunting of Hill House. Weirdly, the book suddenly kicks into Quintessential Jackson, with bonus paranoia, in the last thirty pages or so. The book is peppered with some amazing set-pieces, like this one about the posters at a movie theater: "One of the pictures showed a glorious scene between a man in a cowboy hat and uncomfortable pistols, who backed against a door to face a darker, equally weaponful villain; in the background a damsel wrung her hands and all three seemed to turn anxiously to the camera, which alone could justify the violent emotions they ravished themselves to feel. It was plain from the picture that it was near the end of the day; the sun was setting dramatically outside the backdrop window; the hero had the look of one who would shortly remove his guns and his spurs and go home in a car he had bought but could not afford; the heroine seemed to be thinking, under her beautiful look of fear and concern, that perhaps she should keep the children out of school until this chicken-pox scare was over." (Weaponful is my new favorite word.)
Death in Midsummer and Other Stories by Yukio Mishima (loaned to me by Lyman). "Patriotism," in which an army officer and his wife have sex for the last time and then commit ritual suicide, is probably the story that stood out most for me, though I found it hard to read. A story I liked a lot was "Onnagata," about the infatuation of a kabuki actor for the clueless director of his latest play.
The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley. I am a huge fan of Paley's later short story collections (Enormous Changes at the Last Minute and Later the Same Day), but in the past I bounced off her first book (aside from a few stories like "Goodbye and Good Luck"). I finally made it through the whole book, and I see why I bounced off. Unlike Shirley Jackson, Paley nailed down her style early on, but it took her awhile to fully figure out her subject matter and, maybe more importantly, her approach toward her subjects. Or maybe it's that Paley succeeds most fully as a writer of middle-aged and old characters, rather than young ones.
Books I'm reading at the moment include: Hild by Nicola Griffith, Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire, and The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino.
