TWI Books: #27
Apr. 16th, 2007 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanI tackled a metric ton of manga this past week as well as started some long term reading projects. Hence, I only got through these four books:
1) Rice - Su Tong
I'd been fully intending to give this book a miss (as its reputation had preceded it) until I read My Life As Emperor. And while I'm not upset that I did read it, it is nowhere near as good as Emperor. Rice tells the story of Five Dragons, a man who flees his floodstruck rural homeland for Shanghai in turn of the century China. He ends up finding work for himself at a rice emporium, eventually marrying into the owner's family, and the novel recounts its decline from there. Unfortunately, the characters--every single one of them--lack a single redeeming or sympathetic characteristic amongst them. They're a thouroughly ugly, despicable bunch. Of course, the cast of Emperor was also pretty callous and vindictive, but they grew and changed, and more importantly, Tong let us see into their psyches to understand why they did as they did. Unfortunately, there's none of that here, and the narrative suffers for its lack. Moreover, I found myself unable to understand why so many of the characters were so disgustingly passive, attitudes which seemed arbitrary and unreasonable here without any insight into the characters' motivations. So although Rice was a good book (with an exceptional translation), it doesn't even approach the excellence of Tong's other effort.
2) God's Country - J. Ronald Oakley
This is perhaps my favorite history book, and one I came to know thanks to IASMH's excellent class, "Decades Of Controversy." It deals with America in the 1950s: the politics, the social movements, the wars, presidents, scandals, fads, music, gender relations, race relations--you name it, Oakley has a chapter devoted to it. Better yet, he is remarkably unbiased and objective in his treatment of these issues whilst simultaneously maintaining an engaging and entertaining tone. Oakley's organization of the material is also quite intelligent: he elected to treat each theme in a separate chapter instead of a strictly chronological run through of the entire decade. This treatment, far from compartmentalizing these topics, allows Oakley to deal with them in a clear, logical fashion. Better yet, he manages to ground each topic in the larger framework of the decade without being unnecessarily repetative. My only complaint is that he seems to have vanished into the ether after penning this book (My work here is done?), and I wish he'd written some others.
3) Virginity Or Death! - Katha Pollitt
It should go without saying that as a longtime Nation reader I am a huge fan of Katha Pollitt. She has such a lucid, no nonsense take on all the crap-flinging that passes for politics these days and the blatant hypocrisy of the American right. Virginity Or Death! reprints five years of her Nation columns, which means that I'd already read the majority of them, but it was still nice to read them again all in one place and without the distraction of advertisements. It also lends a nice bit of perspective to see the columns, written as events unfolded, in relation to one another and reflect on how situations and attitudes have changed since they were penned. My only complaint (if it can be called that) is that Virginity is an anthology of Pollitt's column and nothing more; there's a certain monotony to the three-page length of each chapter, and it would have been nice if Pollitt had included some reactions or commentary with her columns. Still, don't let that discourage you from reading, by any means.
4) Thanks For The Memories, Mr. President - Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas is one of my heroes. She's been in the game long enough that she isn't intimidated by power (in fact I rather doubt she ever was) and thus is unafraid of asking tough questions that need to be voiced. Alas, you don't see much of that in this book, which is rather a collection of humorous anecdotes drawn from her (and others') experiences covering nine presidents in the White House Press office. It rather reads like it too, which is ultimately the book's greatest weakness: I'm sure these events were uproarious to those originally involved, but from the reader's perspective they lack luster, as do most jokes told to third parties who weren't there at the time and don't really know the people involved. Familiarity with each president and his term's background also helps a lot--I found the chapters from Bush I on much more amusing than the preceding chapters, because I have a better knowledge of recent presidents and the historical context of their presidencies; both areas in which Thomas assumes her readers are knowledgeable. Thanks For The Memories... is by no means a bad book, but it probably won't bring anything more than a slightly amused smile to anyone who doesn't already have a good working knowledge of its subjects.
SBS: Currently at 77 unread books, up eight from last week. I LOSE.
That will be all.
1) Rice - Su Tong
I'd been fully intending to give this book a miss (as its reputation had preceded it) until I read My Life As Emperor. And while I'm not upset that I did read it, it is nowhere near as good as Emperor. Rice tells the story of Five Dragons, a man who flees his floodstruck rural homeland for Shanghai in turn of the century China. He ends up finding work for himself at a rice emporium, eventually marrying into the owner's family, and the novel recounts its decline from there. Unfortunately, the characters--every single one of them--lack a single redeeming or sympathetic characteristic amongst them. They're a thouroughly ugly, despicable bunch. Of course, the cast of Emperor was also pretty callous and vindictive, but they grew and changed, and more importantly, Tong let us see into their psyches to understand why they did as they did. Unfortunately, there's none of that here, and the narrative suffers for its lack. Moreover, I found myself unable to understand why so many of the characters were so disgustingly passive, attitudes which seemed arbitrary and unreasonable here without any insight into the characters' motivations. So although Rice was a good book (with an exceptional translation), it doesn't even approach the excellence of Tong's other effort.
2) God's Country - J. Ronald Oakley
This is perhaps my favorite history book, and one I came to know thanks to IASMH's excellent class, "Decades Of Controversy." It deals with America in the 1950s: the politics, the social movements, the wars, presidents, scandals, fads, music, gender relations, race relations--you name it, Oakley has a chapter devoted to it. Better yet, he is remarkably unbiased and objective in his treatment of these issues whilst simultaneously maintaining an engaging and entertaining tone. Oakley's organization of the material is also quite intelligent: he elected to treat each theme in a separate chapter instead of a strictly chronological run through of the entire decade. This treatment, far from compartmentalizing these topics, allows Oakley to deal with them in a clear, logical fashion. Better yet, he manages to ground each topic in the larger framework of the decade without being unnecessarily repetative. My only complaint is that he seems to have vanished into the ether after penning this book (My work here is done?), and I wish he'd written some others.
3) Virginity Or Death! - Katha Pollitt
It should go without saying that as a longtime Nation reader I am a huge fan of Katha Pollitt. She has such a lucid, no nonsense take on all the crap-flinging that passes for politics these days and the blatant hypocrisy of the American right. Virginity Or Death! reprints five years of her Nation columns, which means that I'd already read the majority of them, but it was still nice to read them again all in one place and without the distraction of advertisements. It also lends a nice bit of perspective to see the columns, written as events unfolded, in relation to one another and reflect on how situations and attitudes have changed since they were penned. My only complaint (if it can be called that) is that Virginity is an anthology of Pollitt's column and nothing more; there's a certain monotony to the three-page length of each chapter, and it would have been nice if Pollitt had included some reactions or commentary with her columns. Still, don't let that discourage you from reading, by any means.
4) Thanks For The Memories, Mr. President - Helen Thomas
Helen Thomas is one of my heroes. She's been in the game long enough that she isn't intimidated by power (in fact I rather doubt she ever was) and thus is unafraid of asking tough questions that need to be voiced. Alas, you don't see much of that in this book, which is rather a collection of humorous anecdotes drawn from her (and others') experiences covering nine presidents in the White House Press office. It rather reads like it too, which is ultimately the book's greatest weakness: I'm sure these events were uproarious to those originally involved, but from the reader's perspective they lack luster, as do most jokes told to third parties who weren't there at the time and don't really know the people involved. Familiarity with each president and his term's background also helps a lot--I found the chapters from Bush I on much more amusing than the preceding chapters, because I have a better knowledge of recent presidents and the historical context of their presidencies; both areas in which Thomas assumes her readers are knowledgeable. Thanks For The Memories... is by no means a bad book, but it probably won't bring anything more than a slightly amused smile to anyone who doesn't already have a good working knowledge of its subjects.
SBS: Currently at 77 unread books, up eight from last week. I LOSE.
That will be all.
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no subject
on 2007-04-16 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-04-16 03:05 am (UTC)*swoon*
no subject
on 2007-04-16 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-04-16 03:27 am (UTC)But what can I give you in return? American goods? Ficcage? I am at your command;)
*rants*
on 2007-04-16 03:53 am (UTC)