Bumping this thread because i think it’s a good thread and id love for it to keep going.
Since my last post I have read some more books, these are my thoughts on them. Most of this is pretty much directly ripped from my goodreads, but id like to keep that separate as I mostly use it to keep in touch with old classmates.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is about a korean girl in 1930s who falls in love with a gangster and ends up moving to japan. It’s a multi-generational tale about being an immigrant in a country as strict and xenophobic as japan. I found it way more interesting as a pseudo-historical account than an actual story. There are so many moments in the book where the author completely shies away from giving any actual emotional weight. The flat, recounting tone works well for most of the novel but sometimes it feels like missed an opportunity to have actual emotional payoff. If you are interested in japanese or korean culture, this book is still a fascinating read.
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain feels like you get to read a 300 page script to a giant long lost episode of one of his TV shows. If you like Bourdain (GOAT food tv host IMO) then you will enjoy this book a lot. Gritty tales about the culinary world in the 1990s that serve as an incredibly captivating time capsule and a window into the industry as it was then. Thoroughly enjoyed this one.
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara is 3 ~250 page novels disguised as a single giant 800 page monolith. I’ve already talked about how good Yanagiharas novel A Little Life is, and a lot of its strengths carry over into To Paradise. It retains the incredible emotional depth and they still feel so, so very real. However, To Paradise is nowhere near as emotionally scarring as A Little Life. It still stays with you, but in a much less visceral manner. Yanagihara is still great at only telling you what you need to know, and slowly drip feeding you more and more narrative as you get to piece together the narrative for yourself. I enjoyed this book a lot, but the fact that the three stories are so separate from each other makes it hard to have the same connection you get in A Little Life.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman is a story about a character called Shadow who has to hang out with gods and run errands for them. My old roommate really, really likes this book and forced me to read it so he had someone to talk about it with. I thought it was fine. Its honestly not really much of my thing and I couldn’t get Shadow to not look like a hedgehog in my head while reading the novel. Im not really sure what else to say, if you like Neil Gaiman and the type of stuff he writes, then you’ve probably already read this and enjoyed it.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is the best book I’ve read all year. I don’t want to say anything about the plot. Its some 260 pages that honestly feel like they could not possibly be any different, much like how Hemmingways the Old Man and the Sea does. Just read it. It’s not that long and it will blow your mind. Don’t watch the movie. The narrative only works in written form.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami is a book about a Japanese college student who falls in love with his dead best friends girlfriend but also has to hang out with the classic Murakami strange and very forward girl who is also very in love with him. It felt so strange to read a Murakami novel that wasn’t at least 500 pages. Besides that it feels like, well, a Murakami novel. I fucking love Murakami novels, despite how fucking terrible he is at writing female characters without being a massive sexist, he still manages to create such a unique vibe (I cant figure out how else to describe reading a murakami novel besides the murakami vibe sorry)
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is a retelling of the Iliad. I had to read parts of the odyssey in high school and have only ever interacted with the Iliad when I watched troy as an 8 yearold. I think this book is objectively very good. I was engaged and enjoyed myself when reading it, and the language is very pretty too. I just kind of… didn’t care? Much? I don’t know. Ive never cared so little about a novel this good. It feels like the idea of this novel existing is cooler than actually reading it. Retelling greek mythology in a modern way is great. I honestly think that its just my inner teenager wanting to not like this book because every quirky “haha I read btw” girl I see on tinder fucking adores this book.
edit:
I am currently half way through Borges' fictions but they are very dense and im rarely in an appropriate state of mind to read it. I recently put East of Eden by John Steinbeck on my kindle, but im saving it for some very long train journeys i have coming up in a few weeks. It seems like something id really enjoy. Besides that i want to make it through Ishiguros An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day. I also impulse bought Murakamis First Person Singular for a rainy day.
I really want to do a deeper dive into latin american litterature, specifically magical realism. The genre absolutely fascinates me. Does anyone have any recommendations? Ive only read 100 years of solitude but i enjoyed it a lot.