Anybody read a good book lately?

[rjs246]

Oh yeah, I drove down to DC last week and listened to the book on cd of A Thousand Splendid Suns by the same dude who wrote The Kite Runner. It was similar to The Kite Runner in that it is a devastatingly sad story about the wars that have been ripping Afghanistan apart for the past several decades. It was good. Maybe even very good, but I hated listening to the girl's voice telling the story.

[rjs246]

Finished A Farewell to Arms (Hemingway) and All the Pretty Horses (McCarthy) on my last business trip.

They are authors cut from the same clothe. They use an economy of words to describe very real and devastating situations and they are both very 'masculine' writers who in this case were basically writing love stories. Love stories that included war, violence and mayhem on several levels as only brilliant men could write them. Both books were phenomenal and both books made me want to read a comedy for fear that I would decide to kill myself.

Next up, An American Dream by Norman Mailer.

[rjs246]

I seem to be the only one contributing to this thread but what the hell...

I just finished An American Dream and I'm not sure where to begin with this book. On the one hand, it's well written and rife with promiscuity, devious sex, murder and booze. All of which sort of kicks ass. On the other hand, Norman Mailer has succeeded in writing a story that actually made me wish there was LESS testosterone and more actual insight. (Yes I know that the beatniks didn't write to provide insight, they just wrote matter-of-factly and let the readers find their own insight, but farg that. The beatniks can suck it. Oh, and On The Road sucked.)

The main character is a German-stomping war hero, a former college football star, a former Senator, a TV talk show host, a close friend of JFK and an existential philosophy professor. You know, your basic average Joe. But wait, it gets better. He murders his wife (who he says is sucking the life out of him but makes no noticeable effort to explain how), is called a sexual 'genius' after he has anal sex with the maid, sleeps with another woman and gives her her first orgasm, drinks like a fish, fights like a drunk and stares down police officers and professional boxers with his toughness. His father in law thanks him for murdering his daughter, and then he beats his father in law in the head with an umbrella. In the end, he drives to Las Vegas, wins a shteinload of money and flees to Mexico to evade the law.

This book could be seen as tongue in cheek, an ironic glimpse into a twisted 'American dream' of roided-up masculine fantasies, except for one major problem, MAILER STABBED HIS WIFE IN REAL LIFE. So the dude tries to kill his wife and then writes a book about getting away with murdering your wife. Right. Real tongue in cheek there Norman.

With every word that Mailer writes he is jerking himself closer and closer to climax until at the end of his fantasy all you can picture is a walking, talking, vein-bulging erection occupying the pages of the book.

Even given all of that, I'm giving it 3 stars out of 5 because after anally violating his wife's maid, which she loves, he demands that she take a shower. He then sleeps with another woman without actually showering himself. In fact, he does not take a shower for the remainder of the book. Which is sort of gross and hilarious.

[Diomedes]

I thought Mailer's Executioner's Song was great, but I havne't liked anything else of his I tried.  Which is to say I didn't like The Naked and The Dead.  I haven't read anything else of his.

I would contribute to this thread but I haven't read a book in forever now.  Been slogging through one after another and quitting on each because nothing has grabbed me.

Reading is for snobs.

[rjs246]

I just finished Everyman, by Philip Roth. Just like any book that is well written, the message came across and had an impact on me, but I didn't love it. The main character struggles throughout his life with an overwhelming fear of death. As such almost all of his thoughts and actions are tainted by his fears and he is constantly trying to recapture his youth. This leads to doubt and regret and self-loathing and all kinds of other shtein that I have no patience or respect for. Maybe I'll be able to relate as I grow older and death is more imminent, but ultimately that's the problem I have with this book. No matter how well written or touching or human the story is, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was nothing more then 181 pages of an old man's whining.

(On the plus side, this is the second straight book I've read where the protagonist makes anal love to a European lady as part of a major plot point. The chances of that can't be very good.)

[Rome]

I just finished "Sundog" by Jim Harrison.  I don't know how I missed reading this in the past but man it was terrific.

Highly recommended if for no other reason than Robert Corvus Strang might be the most farged-up protagonist in all of Harrison's canon.

[Sgt PSN]

Finished up "Running With Scissors" - Augusten Borrows about 2 months ago but forgot to post about it here.  Basically just a bunch of memior-like short stories about his life told in no particular order.  The chapters were all relatively short which made it a great book to read on the can since you could squeeze in a chapter in roughly the same time it takes to squeeze out a deuce.  Hilarious book that's extremely detailed to allow you to really visualize the story being told. 

I'm in the middle of reading Stephen Colbert's "I Am America (And So Can You!)" but I'm having a hard time with it because it's literally making me laugh myself to tears. 

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

I'm waiting for paperback on Colbert's book.

[Sgt PSN]

Lame

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Frugal

[Wingspan]

Library?

[rjs246]

Die.

[Geowhizzer]

Finally finished David McCullough's The Path Between The Seas on the Panama Canal.  It is well-written, but it was McCullough's first book (about 1976), and it reads a bit too much like a college textbook.  It's 620 pages long of pretty small font.  Interesting to see how a lot of that went down, but I could see someone not interested in history not being able to get through it.

Just started on McCullough's 1776 a few days ago.  Even though I'm only about 20 pages into it, you can tell how much McCullough's writing style changes over 30 years.  Much easier to get though, and very interesting in the short time I've had to read it.

After that I'm going to re-read Bruce Catton's A Stillness in Appomattox.  Catton is still my all-time favorite Civil War author.

[rjs246]

Finished Heaven is a Playground last week. I normally don't dig non-fiction but it was about sports so I enjoyed it. There isn't much to say other than that it was a very interesting look into 1970s ghetto life and that white people are goofy.

I've decided to dedicate myself to reading Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon next. This is going to be quite a project and I'll almost certainly start and finish several other books before I finish it but it's been sitting on my bookshelf for a while now so I'm gonna give it a shot.

[Rome]

It took me an entire semester of college to finish Gravity's Rainbow.  Good luck with that one, hoss.