Do Magazines Count?

If glossy, advertisement-heavy fashion and home improvement magazines counted as reading, then maybe, maybe I got at least semi-close to reading 100 books in the year 2010.

Somehow though, I can't quite give myself permission to discuss in depth any of the dog-eared, half-flipped through issues of Lucky, ReadyMade, and Phoenix Home & Garden that currently litter most available surfaces in my home. I can however, reflect on what entertaining and informative literature I did manage to consume, and share with you some of the interesting things I learned about books and myself along the way.

The Hours

There is a video in the archives of The New Yorker online which includes what most believe is the only recorded spoken words of author Virginia Woolf. It is a strange piece of audio, surreal to be listening to the voice that I have imagined so differently. It was part of a BBC recording entitled "Words Fail Me."

This post could hold a title of the same name. Michael Cunningham's The Hours is an absolutely brilliant piece of literature, and if I were able to discuss it with even half of the intelligence, wit and sensitivity he exhibits, I would be writing books, not just reviewing them -

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

Such a great premise. A never-mentioned great aunt is released from a Scottish psychiatric hospital after 61 years, 5 months and 3 days into the care of an unwitting twenty-something boutique owner who still lives in the flat that was once the site of the offending act that put the aforementioned relative away all those years ago. Certainly bonds are to be formed and dark family secrets are to be revealed...Sounds good, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, what could be a dark and twisting tale of secrets, lies and those unspeakable things that pass from generation to generation is mucked up by a few awkward sub-plots involving an amorous step-brother and a married boyfriend and a flash-back style that just didn't sit well on the page.

The Red Tent

"I would be a woman soon, and I would have to learn how to live with a divided heart." (Pg. 86)

...and so we recognize the theme of Anita Diamant's novel - The Red Tent - as well as that of the lives of women everywhere. This story of Dinah is loosely based on the Biblical saga of her father Jacob, who was the son of Esau and grandson of Abraham (as told in the book of Genesis). It is a powerful family drama; an epic, multi-generational legacy along the lines of Gabriel Garcia Marques' 100 Years of Solitude. As with the Marques' novel, at the closing the book, I found it impossible that so much could have been said in only 321 pages.

As should be expected, the text itself is beautiful, poetic. But in my reflection of the novel, I found I couldn't really remember any particular lines, only "scenes" and emotions tied to particular moments.

How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying

Ah, the good old days, when men were men, status was akin to the number of windows in one's office, and all the best secretaries wore conical bras.

You may have seen the musical version of How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, starring Matthew Broderick on Broadway in the early 1990's, or you may have been lucky enough to have lived the life author Sheppard Mead described in 1952.

Getting straight to the point - I found How to Succeed...(aka: The Dastard's Guide to Fame and Fortune) not quite worth the read.

I realize that I might take myself just a little too seriously to ever fully "get" any satirical work but the text left me cold.

House of Sand and Fog

Polylingual novels = critical acclaim? It certainly seems so. It also seems like I can't help picking them up like a case of head lice in a pre-school classroom.

I was less-than-thrilled with the the multiple languages used in A History of Love and Stones From the River, and I hardly noticed them in Eat Pray Love. Maybe because a dear friend of mine is Arabic, and I have grown used to hearing the music of an ancient language in my daily life that I really loved the Farsi that was woven throughout the text of House of Sand and Fog. Rolling the consonants and vowels around in my mouth, saying the words aloud - it seemed to soften the narrative somehow; to slow down the plot train as it charged toward an inevitably climactic end. It was beautiful.

The History of Love

If I were to make a list of all the qualities that make a book truly great, the most important would be that the text were able to MOVE ME. To tears. Of grief or joy or confusion, it doesn't matter. What matters is that the words and sentences strung together at some point become so personal that I can't not be altered for them.