martybarker wrote:I loved "To kill a Mockingbird" I read it while my daughter read it for school.
Can you give me a hint about "Water for Elephants" Maybe that will be next on my list.
Sorry to digress from the book at hand. Sorry, I didn't read it. I'll keep checking in to see what the next book is and catch up then.
Marty, "Water for Elephants" is about a young man who joins a traveling
circus. The time is 1930, the great depression time, everyone is hit hard
incl. circus life. The book follows the young man until he's 93 years old
and in a retirement home. I especially liked the ending of this book, but
I won't give it away.....find out yourself !!
I've started The Inheritance of Loss and I'm finding it hard going. The description is very well done. I had a dream that took place in the servant's hovel--Desai's description is that good.
E.M. Forster's Passage to India described India as "muddled" and I don't get the feeling that much has changed.
Onward. Onward.
So...how's the reading going?
I must admit I am finding it all a bit turgid.....I am more than halfway through, and still fascinated......
I'm just waiting until it looks like a discussion is starting, then I'll leaf back through!
I've been a very bad girl.
I read a hundred pages. I did not dislike those hundred pages. I did start to think I saw where the book was going. I plan to finish the book, which lies splayed open next my bed.
Not always a bad thing, but a potentially bad thing for me and my patience, if a book has a certain pace and I have not yet engaged interest.
Still, I did finish whathisface, A Suitable Boy, a tome of endless pages, perhaps only from odd reasons re interest.
Meantime, in the days after I fell on my bum by catching my foot on the near carpet and clasping a soon to fall ladder...
my patience just fell by the wayside. Not sure what day that was, guessing late Thursday, and I'm posting cheerily here on Tuesday.
I say, looking north, that it was a simple coccyx ligament pull.
Anyway, I didn't have patience for the Loss book and picked up Peter Robb's Death in Brazil.
I think that's what fixed my bum, yeah. Geez, that guy can write.
And, unfortunately, it made a display in my mind between the Loss of Inheritance (which I know very well of and could write another book or two personally) and the vigor of the Robb book.
So, I've previously read by Peter Robb, Midnight in Sicily
The Man who would be Caravaggio, and now this, A Death in Brazil.. all non fiction. Man can write.
I'll go on about Death in Brazil on another thread, another time.
But if you ever hurt your bum, read this.......
This sounds like fun! I'm going to try to read Inheritance of Loss so I can join in, but if it's hard going as some seem to find it to be, I doubt I'll have time to get through it... I'll pick it up tomorrow and check it out though.
And I hope some pick up Robb's Death in Brazil... sometime later I'll explain why I appreciate his writing so much. Knocked my socks off when I was busy whining.
I've started to analyze why but not in the mood to elaborate.
ossobuco wrote:I've been a very bad girl.
I read a hundred pages. I did not dislike those hundred pages. I did start to think I saw where the book was going. I plan to finish the book, which lies splayed open next my bed.
Not always a bad thing, but a potentially bad thing for me and my patience, if a book has a certain pace and I have not yet engaged interest.
Still, I did finish whathisface, A Suitable Boy, a tome of endless pages, perhaps only from odd reasons re interest.
Meantime, in the days after I fell on my bum by catching my foot on the near carpet and clasping a soon to fall ladder...
my patience just fell by the wayside.
You're not the only bad girl, osso.
I started reading it quite some time ago & sort of got waylaid (as is my habit!). Not sure why (possibly the tiny print had something to do with it?), but you know when you find your concentration drifting & know that the best thing is to reread the whole thing at a later date ... when you're more responsive? That's what happened.
Same story as you with
A Suitable Boy, too. I couldn't stop reading that! Actually I was distracted from
Inheritance of Loss by rereading
another of Vikram's efforts -
The Golden Gate. Wonderful stuff!
No rhyme or reason to my reading habits, I'm afraid ...
Anybody ever read the fabulous book by Barbara Gowdy: The White Bone. Everybody should read it.
Mame wrote:dlowan wrote:Mame wrote:Anybody ever read the fabulous book by Barbara Gowdy: The White Bone. Everybody should read it.
Yes.
pfffffft! and?
What?
I read it. It was very sad.
I don't think everybody should read it.
dlowan wrote:I don't think everybody should read it.
I was just wondering how come I'd missed this book, just before your last post, Deb.
It sounded worthy of interest.
Without going into anything you don't think it's a good idea to go into ... what's good about it & why shouldn't some people read it?
Mind you, I know absolutely
nothing at all about it, so .... leave it at this if it seems a good idea, OK?
msolga wrote:dlowan wrote:I don't think everybody should read it.
I was just wondering how come I'd missed this book, just before your last post, Deb.
It sounded worthy of interest.
Without going into anything you don't think it's a good idea to go into ... what's good about it & why shouldn't some people read it?
Mind you, I know absolutely
nothing at all about it, so .... leave it at this if it seems a good idea, OK?
Well, you, for instance, might feel suicidal after it.
It's about elephants.......being poached and massacred and dying slow, agonising deaths. With lots of elephant lore and supposed elephant spirituality/transcendence stuff.
Here's an Amazon review:
Amazon review
I thought it was tweeish, in a very heavy and despairingly awful way.
But that's me. I mean I.
Thanks, Deb.
I read the review.
You're right, it isn't for me.
I've been slogging through the last 100 pages of Inheritance for over a month. I'm down to 60 pages remaining but what started out as a fast read has become anything but fast.
I'm glad to know there are other sinners in this world who can be diverted from Culture by a Good Story.
Hmm, freudian slip, osso? I meant Inheritance of Loss, not Loss of Inheritance. I've dealt with both, but meant the book title.
Hah!! I so understand how one can get sidetracked with "Loss of Inheritance"
as I struggled with it myself. It's just poorly written in my view, and it's
a darn shame, as the topic itself would be such an interesting theme to
explore.
dlowan, how did you like "Water for Elephants"?
