This Week In Books: #19
Feb. 19th, 2007 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanThere's nothing like being snowed in all week to convince you to read six books.
1) Jewtopia - Bryan Fogel & Sam Wolfson
This hilarious book is apparently losely based on the authors' broadway production. I know nothing of said play, but the book is hysterical. Unfortunately, this means that I can't write about it without giving the jokes away. The best I can do is to say that it's the Jewish America: Democracy Inaction, and mention that the sections on Jewish holidays and manscaping (no, I'm not joking) are gold.
2) Ruby In The Smoke - Philip Pullman
This book was written roughly two decades before Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and it shows. Still, it's an amusing and quick read with likeable and unusual characters and some very well-executed scenes. It suffers from the murder/mystery novel's propensity for too much exposition and abrupt POV changes, but is overall quite entertaining and good for an afternoon's reading.
3) The Universe In A Single Atom - The Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama attempts in this book to discuss the relationship between several fields of modern day science and Tibetan Buddhist cosmology and philosophy. Unfortunately, he never delves very deeply into either of these subjects, perhaps because the book is geared toward laymen in both fields. The effect, however, is to make his arguments appear somewhat tenuous at best and ungrounded at worst. I thus found myself enjoying the author's personal reminiscences the most. A good read, but definitely a library lender.
4) Shadow In The North - Philip Pullman
Spoiler-cut because I can't discuss this one without giving away large elements of the plot.
What an uninspiring potboiler. Characters from Ruby appear in such a mutated fashion in this volume as to be completely unrecognizable. In fact, I read a good deal of the beginning under the impression that I was reading this volume out of order, so bad are the incongruities. Pullman has unfortunately rendered previously sympathetic characters utterly unlikeable and newly-introduced characters unlikeable from the get-go, and that's only the beginning of the book's woes. More unforgiveable yet are the mysterious disappearances of some of the neatest characters from the first work, who have simply vanished from the narrative without so much as a whisper. Pullman can't even be bothered to spare them a single sentence of write-off, it would seem. The "plot," such as it is, barely merits the term. It staggers drunkenly across the 300-odd pages with no idea as to its identity, where it's going, or where it happens to be now. It branches out wildly into various tangents, dead ends, and consumate holes, most of which are left unresolved at the book's end. Despite this fact, it all manages to be very predictable, including the horridly sappy main chara's fade-out giving-the-gift-of-virginity sex scene (which is actually quite icky, although that's not the intended effect) followed immediately by the death of the man she's just realized she doesn't hate, and continuing on to the inevitable "bittersweet" pregnancy at the novel's end. Just ugh. I'll let you know how the third book turns out, but definitely give this one the miss
5) Snow Flower And The Secret Fan - Lisa See
It's going to take me a while before I can form a final opinion on this book, but at the moment I can say it's well-written with a curiously sympathetic narrator despite her oddly detached voice. In summary: main character Lily is promised as an "old same" (think officially-sanctioned BFF) to another young girl in the next village who happens to posses a much higher status (thus insuring Lily's own prospects for an upwardly-mobile marriage). Snow Flower follows the two through childhood, footbinding, marriage, childbirth, and the Taiping Rebellion. The binding note throughout is nu shu, a form of written language created by women for their exclusive communication. The foreshadowing is inobtrusive, but the cataclysmic moment so obvious that one can guess what's occurred well before the narrator's enlightenment. Nu shu and Lily's old same are the novel; everyone else--parents, husband, in-laws, children, fellow villagers, everyone--is relegated to barely-there status. Yet this does work well (works better, in fact, before the narrator's attempt to explain it). The detachment helps readers understand several aspects of Chinese society: how women could live their lives emotionally detached from their families, their husbands, many of their children; how they could undergo footbinding themselves yet still mandate it for their children. No western worldview intruding here. Unfortunately, this completely alien voice makes it harder to sympathise with the characters on the whole. Still, this is a very good book.
6) Five Centuries Of Japanese Kimono - The Chicago Art Museum (comp)
The title is something of a misnomer, as all but one of the kimono in this book come from the mid- to late Edo period. Furthermore, "kimono" is used here as a catch-all term encompasing nuihaku, happi, chouken, and surihaku as well as traditional kimono. Finally, the majority of the book deals almost exclusively Noh theatrical costumes, as opposed to everyday clothing. This is certainly an interesting subject, but the information is not presented in the most logical or progressive of fashions, making prior knowledge of the subject helpful. The final chapters on sericulture in Utamaro's woodblock prints and Edo-era kimono fashion books are far more accessible. My biggest complaint is that there are an astounding number of unforgivable errors (misspellings of play titles, misattribution of artwork, and inconsistent and outdated romanization) for a publication of the Chicago Museum of Art. The 32 color plates (and numerous black and white illustrations), however, justify owning this book for anyone interested in its subjects.
That will be all.
1) Jewtopia - Bryan Fogel & Sam Wolfson
This hilarious book is apparently losely based on the authors' broadway production. I know nothing of said play, but the book is hysterical. Unfortunately, this means that I can't write about it without giving the jokes away. The best I can do is to say that it's the Jewish America: Democracy Inaction, and mention that the sections on Jewish holidays and manscaping (no, I'm not joking) are gold.
2) Ruby In The Smoke - Philip Pullman
This book was written roughly two decades before Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and it shows. Still, it's an amusing and quick read with likeable and unusual characters and some very well-executed scenes. It suffers from the murder/mystery novel's propensity for too much exposition and abrupt POV changes, but is overall quite entertaining and good for an afternoon's reading.
3) The Universe In A Single Atom - The Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama attempts in this book to discuss the relationship between several fields of modern day science and Tibetan Buddhist cosmology and philosophy. Unfortunately, he never delves very deeply into either of these subjects, perhaps because the book is geared toward laymen in both fields. The effect, however, is to make his arguments appear somewhat tenuous at best and ungrounded at worst. I thus found myself enjoying the author's personal reminiscences the most. A good read, but definitely a library lender.
4) Shadow In The North - Philip Pullman
Spoiler-cut because I can't discuss this one without giving away large elements of the plot.
What an uninspiring potboiler. Characters from Ruby appear in such a mutated fashion in this volume as to be completely unrecognizable. In fact, I read a good deal of the beginning under the impression that I was reading this volume out of order, so bad are the incongruities. Pullman has unfortunately rendered previously sympathetic characters utterly unlikeable and newly-introduced characters unlikeable from the get-go, and that's only the beginning of the book's woes. More unforgiveable yet are the mysterious disappearances of some of the neatest characters from the first work, who have simply vanished from the narrative without so much as a whisper. Pullman can't even be bothered to spare them a single sentence of write-off, it would seem. The "plot," such as it is, barely merits the term. It staggers drunkenly across the 300-odd pages with no idea as to its identity, where it's going, or where it happens to be now. It branches out wildly into various tangents, dead ends, and consumate holes, most of which are left unresolved at the book's end. Despite this fact, it all manages to be very predictable, including the horridly sappy main chara's fade-out giving-the-gift-of-virginity sex scene (which is actually quite icky, although that's not the intended effect) followed immediately by the death of the man she's just realized she doesn't hate, and continuing on to the inevitable "bittersweet" pregnancy at the novel's end. Just ugh. I'll let you know how the third book turns out, but definitely give this one the miss
5) Snow Flower And The Secret Fan - Lisa See
It's going to take me a while before I can form a final opinion on this book, but at the moment I can say it's well-written with a curiously sympathetic narrator despite her oddly detached voice. In summary: main character Lily is promised as an "old same" (think officially-sanctioned BFF) to another young girl in the next village who happens to posses a much higher status (thus insuring Lily's own prospects for an upwardly-mobile marriage). Snow Flower follows the two through childhood, footbinding, marriage, childbirth, and the Taiping Rebellion. The binding note throughout is nu shu, a form of written language created by women for their exclusive communication. The foreshadowing is inobtrusive, but the cataclysmic moment so obvious that one can guess what's occurred well before the narrator's enlightenment. Nu shu and Lily's old same are the novel; everyone else--parents, husband, in-laws, children, fellow villagers, everyone--is relegated to barely-there status. Yet this does work well (works better, in fact, before the narrator's attempt to explain it). The detachment helps readers understand several aspects of Chinese society: how women could live their lives emotionally detached from their families, their husbands, many of their children; how they could undergo footbinding themselves yet still mandate it for their children. No western worldview intruding here. Unfortunately, this completely alien voice makes it harder to sympathise with the characters on the whole. Still, this is a very good book.
6) Five Centuries Of Japanese Kimono - The Chicago Art Museum (comp)
The title is something of a misnomer, as all but one of the kimono in this book come from the mid- to late Edo period. Furthermore, "kimono" is used here as a catch-all term encompasing nuihaku, happi, chouken, and surihaku as well as traditional kimono. Finally, the majority of the book deals almost exclusively Noh theatrical costumes, as opposed to everyday clothing. This is certainly an interesting subject, but the information is not presented in the most logical or progressive of fashions, making prior knowledge of the subject helpful. The final chapters on sericulture in Utamaro's woodblock prints and Edo-era kimono fashion books are far more accessible. My biggest complaint is that there are an astounding number of unforgivable errors (misspellings of play titles, misattribution of artwork, and inconsistent and outdated romanization) for a publication of the Chicago Museum of Art. The 32 color plates (and numerous black and white illustrations), however, justify owning this book for anyone interested in its subjects.
That will be all.