You thought I was gonna make an "Electric Boogaloo" lame-o joke. Yeah.
I don't like reading outside. At all. I walk around outside, get bored, then go inside and read. If I read outside, what am I gonna do inside, walk around? Okay, back to business.
4. Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov
The first play of the marathon. A lot of fretting about and indecision, and ultimately you get to know these people and realize they act like people, not characters. I didn't think I could criticize Chekov, and I can't, but I admit I don't understand what all the fuss is about--all that means is I don't understand. I will someday, I hope, but for now this was an enjoyable comedy of manners I blew through rapidly. I'm reading a book of his stories, and they are as good as advertised. Don't really get them either.
5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
I hope to read more Dickens, but since I'm trying to blast through as many slim books early on in the year to get some numbers on the board, this one got gobbled up. A century of movie and TV versions that all seem perfectly accurate made this one a bit of a drag, but it has that mix of darkness and hope against all rationality characteristic of the fat novels. Needed a sex scene.
6. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
Some very funny imagery, and my favorite story is about the family that waits for the moon to drift by so this one slow brother can climb up and walk around. A weird little love story, that one. By the midway point I got the joke and it was slower going, but this one left me with plenty of imagery to carry away.
I haven't worked out the spacing on this yet, so it may get dicey. Just so you know the page isn't being stretched by a nearby wormhole.
7. The Big Kerplop! by Bertrand Brindley
The original Mad Scientist's Club adventure. The first book was one I really enjoyed as a kid. This one was aimed at an older audience, and is a YA novel, not a collection of adventures. Good deliniation of a small town, and characters who aren't nerds yet appreciate brains and intellience. The two earlier collections are superior.
8. The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard by who the hell do you think?
Now we're picking up speed. I've read Ballard novels and short stories over the years but these are the very best. Ballard's stories about giant cities (the citizens are never outside, just moving around using intra-building transportation), deserted NASA sites and the running down of things are original, bleak and thought-provoking. I suppose anything from a blob of chewed gum to an inappropriate fart is thought-provoking, but these left me with a sense of the end of life being something always there within life, and you can't mope about it, so just get on with sweeping the sand out of the hotel room.
It has to be said that when people like Ballard came along, Asimov and the like began their decline, their scifi tuff looking pretty thin and without connection to the reader's actual emotions and thoughts about life. A neat laser pistol won't help you deal with a crappy job and a bump on your crotch.
I'm never gonna finish this. I'll be typing these notes up a year after I read book #970 (my estimate of how far I'll get with this--as of today. Watch this space!).
9. The Golden Gizmo by Jim Thompson
Supposedly one of Thompson's many poor novels, written during one of those vacations from neighborliness that grew like mushrooms throughout his life. A salesman in L.A., a woman controlled by an ex-Nazi, betrayal from the one you least expect--moved at a rapid clip and ended with a bang. I liked it! Wheee! That probably made the ghost of Thompson sad, when I typed 'Wheee!" in a comment on his work.
10. The Digger's Game by George V. Higgins
More Eddie Coyle-ish fun from Mr. Boston Happiness. Wheee!
No comments:
Post a Comment