Nevertheless, I decided to give His Dark Materials a go a couple of months ago because of all the chin music. It is typical to give Pullman high marks for some of his more inventive gimmicks, like the daemons. Frankly, they wore thin by the second book. Just more talking animals. The author’s inversion of, and therefore dependence on, C.S. Lewis is as subtle as a colonoscopy, but he also owes a debt to Madeleine L’Engle, it seems to me. And then there are all those witches, the single most boring group of preternatural creatures ever concocted. In the second book, they just go on and on until you realize why the Puritans finally burned them at the stake–it was the only way to make them stop talking.
as i’m whittling down my book queue at home–i’m about 30% through the time traveler’s wife–i took a gander at my “books to read” list that i keep on amazon and there’s something i noticed about my list of 94 books. with the exception of a new translation of the aenid and some cookbooks, my list is basically post-2005 novels. not much in terms of nonfiction and a great lack of older “great” literature. the last piece of lit that i read was lolita and it was truly an amazing novel.
i’ve been looking at the top 10 lists that have been posted on amazon’s book blog recently and it made me wonder if i need to add some older books to that list. so i’m looking for suggestions from you.
what would you consider to be a “top 10″ greatest novel?
I just finished reading The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak and I have to admit I’m feeling a little haunted. Yes, haunted for I cannot think of any other word which best describes how I’m feeling right now.
When I first saw the book and it’s 550 some odd pages, I felt…intimidated. Would I ever get around to reading it? Would it be like so many other books that I’ve read where 50 pages will be revealed and let loose upon the emptiness of my imagination only to be forgotten about? Would this become a struggle, a book where page 152 will mark the end of my interest with the others following looming above me like a ashen nightmare, a shadow in the dark unable to be seen but whose presence is always felt?
No, this book did not turn out to satisfy any of those questions. What the book turned out to be was one of sadness, of heartfelt compassion, of pity, of triumph and ultimately, one told by Death. Yes, the narrator of this book is Death.
I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race–that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant. None of those things, however, came out of my mouth. All I was able to do was turn to Liesel Meminger and tell her the only truth I truly know. I said it to the book thief and I say it now to you.
I am haunted by humans.
Perhaps this is why I feel the way that I do. This is a book filled with “a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter and quite a lot of thievery.” A story following the lives of people in a small town outside of Munich during WWII. The images are haunting: the emaciated people, the marches from Dachau, the smoldering ruins and the blood red sky. It is as powerful to me as Night.
I do not carry a sickle or scythe. I only wear a hooded black robe when it’s cold. And I don’t have those skull-like facial features you seem to enjoy pinning on me from a distance. You want to know what I truly look like? I’ll help you find out. Find yourself a mirror…
