Reena Reviews Exercises in Style by Raymond Queaneau

Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

Calder Publications, 1998

So there's this guy named Raymond Queneau, right, and one day he decides to write the same little scene (i.e. a man is jostled by another man on the bus and they argue, then the first man goes and sits down; later on the narrator spots him being questioned by a friend about his fashion sense) in ten different styles. He sends the completed work in to a literary magazine and the editor looks at it and is puzzled and sends it back. Then the guy writes 89 more variations of his story and at some point the whole thing gets published.

It's a simple and somewhat strange concept. But the fantastic thing is that it illustrates just how much diction, subjectivity and tone really matter in language. Just by using appropriate synonyms and adding some exclamation points here and there, a sombre description of the scenario evolves into what could pretty much be an extract from a lighthearted gossip session. Each time, the same scene is retold from a different angle, with a different hook (without the letter 'e', as a tanka...). It's a charming exploration of the nuances that a mastery of language - French, in the original; and English in the edition I read (of course) - can afford.

Having read this, I've come away with an overwhelming appreciation for the art of translation. The edition I read includes a foreword written by the translator Barbara Wright, a foreword in which she describes the painstaking effort put into approximating the tones of each original snippet. In many cases for which there are simply no equivalent jokes or words in English, she had to craft similarly contextualized scenarios from scratch at her own discretion. With this in mind, the final English language work, while certainly based on the premise introduced by Queneau in the original French, is probably as much Wright's work as his. It did make me wonder how different the English translation is from the French original - but I suppose, not being a Francophone and not really knowing much about French culture in general, it's not likely that I'll be able to find out any time soon. Which is kind of a shame.

All that said, though, no matter how interesting its premise, you really can't escape from the fact that Exercises in Style is basically 99 slight variations of the same short and not particularly meaningful story. I have no doubt that the scene to which the reader is repeatedly subjected is in fact intended to be meaningless on its own; the overall focus of the book is supposed to be on the various forms through which the story is told, rather than on the story itself. But it's kind of like in Whose Line is it Anyway?, when the improvisers were asked to read the credits out in an 'amusing' style of Drew's (or, indeed, Clive's) choosing - it's funny at first, but after the nth time it just gets a little bit old. After I got the point it was trying to make about the flexibility and fluidity of language, I found it quite difficult to go on reading for more than a few chapters at a time.

Because of this last point, I'm giving Exercises in Style 3.5 stars. It's an intriguing idea that gets slightly tedious after a bit, but I can't say I regret checking it out.

I'd actually wanted to read this book for a while now. It was briefly featured in a book I read last year, Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry by Leanne Shapton (I love typing that out in full), which I reviewed some time ago. At the time I figured that the two books were somehow linked, in spirit, both being concerned with the retelling of everyday stories in unique styles. The thing is, Important Artifacts worked for me because the story was one I enjoyed and could invest in; Exercises in Style not so much, because of the mundanity of the basic story. I think I'm just fundamentally a story person.

Reena's Top Ten Books I Wish I'd Read As a Kid

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list complete with one of our bloggers’ answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND post a comment on our post with a link to your Top Ten Tuesday post to share with us and all those who are participating. If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. If you can't come up with ten, don't worry about it---post as many as you can!


NEXT WEEK THE TOPIC IS:  Top Ten Best Debut Books (of any year..just your favorite debut/"first from an author" books. If you want, you can focus on debuts of a specific year but it's open to debuts of any year). Click HERE for a list of future Top Ten Tuesday topics.


 As I've grown older, I've realized that there are a number of "children's classics" that I'd never read as a kid. Some of them I wish I could go back in time and read as a child, some of them I still want to seek out as an adult, and for all of them I simply don't understand why I never read them at the time.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

I read this only very recently, and I really enjoyed it. I'd quite honestly never even heard of it until the movie came out.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

I've read some of Shel Silverstein's poetry and I think it's brilliant. As a child I was always obsessed about this kind of silly, whimsical verse. In fact I have a soft spot for it even now.

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss

I have no idea why I haven't read this. I mean, I've read The Cat in the Hat and all, and I've certainly known of Dr Seuss for as long as I can remember. But somehow I've only ever known Green Eggs and Ham by reputation and have never read it before!

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I read this last year. I hated it. Even the silly verse failed to make me enjoy it as an adult. I think I might have enjoyed it more as a child. Or maybe not.

The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

When I think of the United States, I think of the East Coast, the West Coast and the South. For some reason, I never read anything about the Midwest as a child.

The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner

When I was about ten I had a friend who was obsessed with these books. It's shame I never read them, because I might have been obsessed too. When I was that age I always loved it when characters improvised their own dwellings. I'd have loved the idea of living in a boxcar.

The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

They were mentioned in Matilda by Roald Dahl and I told myself I ought to read the Just So Stories. But at the time I didn't know how to borrow things from the library, so I never did.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

This is another book I've known of for as long as I can remember, but have never actually read. It sounds kind of adorable.

Jumanji by Chris VanAllsburg

I mean, it's Jumanji. I watched the movie at least half a dozen times as a kid but I only found out very recently that it was a book first.

The Happy Prince and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde

I think I read a version of the titular story when I was around four. Thinking about it sometimes still makes me cry. I wish I'd read the other stories as well.

R holds forth on The Battle for God

The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong

Knopf, 2000

Where I got this book: The library.

Why I read this book: I've always been fairly interested in the topic.

The Battle for God is a historical overview of fundamentalism in the Abrahamic traditions, with a focus on American Protestant fundamentalism, Israeli/Zionist fundamentalism, and Muslim fundamentalism in Egypt (Sunni) and Iran (Shii). It explores the circumstances through which fundamentalism arose as a uniting force in each of these cases, the conditions that led to the development of these four movements that play such important roles in the international arena today.

To describe this book as merely a factual overview, however, would be to misrepresent it - Armstrong does in fact put forth some of her opinions on the theological, political and social implications of the various veins of fundamentalism.

The main thrusts of Armstrong's argument are as follows:

1. The dawn of religious thought saw the development of two different but mutually reconcilable methods of perception, mythos (myth abstraction, metaphysics, religion and so on) and logos (rational thought, the scientific method, you get the drift), both deemed integral to a holistic existence, but also two distinct realms that were not to encroach upon each other (i.e. mythos was not considered a "blueprint for practical action");
2. The incidence of fundamentalist movements are reactionary in nature, emerging as they do in response to the participants' perception of undesirable or overly rapid modernization;
3. While the stated aims of these movements are often purportedly conservative, to espouse a continuation of or reversion "to the wellsprings", their interpretations of theological principles as well as the manner in which they go about furthering their causes are often modern and in alignment with the contemporary zeitgeist;
4. The modern world has moved away from its previous balance of mythos and logos, and is now almost entirely reliant on logos to the detriment of mythos; and
5. Much of the religious unrest of the modern world is a result of fundamentalists who choose mythos as a means of practical action in response to the overwhelmingly logos-driven world, a plan of action that is incongruent with traditional religious principles.

Now, I can agree with points 2, 3, 4 and the first half of 5. However, I find it difficult to believe that, as Armstrong asserts, the earliest generations of humanity thought of mythos as entirely metaphorical, not at all seeing religion as a literal explanation for things happening in the physical world. Surely such abstract ideas as creation myths were passed down because they were actually believed, not merely because they were known to people as allegorical manifestations of the lack of human understanding. Certainly, whether these ideas are literal, allegorical or indeed totally redundant is always an issue that is hotly debated. But considering the spectrum of opinions today, is it not possible that this spectrum existed even as our main monotheistic religions were taking shape? There really is no solid, documented evidence of whether or not religion had been understood metaphorically by its practitioners all those years ago, hence the fact that Armstrong took such a leap with her main thesis really undermines the book.

That said, the exhaustive chronological landscape drawn by Armstrong is a strong point. I must say that I feel like I learnt a lot about a number of related topics - from the difference between Sunni and Shii Islam (in my ignorance, I used to think it was just some kind of family feud ... well, it kind of was, but there's so much more to it than that) to the dispersion of the Jewish diaspora (which I'd known even less about).

What I appreciated most about the book is its overriding message of religious tolerance. A recurring theme that is brought up in various scenarios is that the use of oppression and force against a religious group tends to have a contrary effect. In her capacity as a former Catholic nun and recipient of the 1999 Muslim Public Affairs Council Media Award who teaches at Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism, Armstrong herself is apparently a beacon of interfaith understanding. As one whose natural inclinations tend in this direction, I was as such particularly well-disposed to the book on this count, even in spite of my aforementioned scepticism of its main argument.

It is because of this that I give The Battle for God 4 stars; the readability and meticulousness of its factual overview trumps the lack of veracity of its mythos/logos thesis. Regardless of its flaws, I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in the topic that it covers; ultimately it does a pretty decent job.

R holds forth on The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

Harper Perennial, 2005

How I got this book: The library

Why I read this book: Seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Professor and the Madman tells the historical stories of two drastically different men in mid-to-late Victorian England (though neither was English) who came into contact with each other through their painstaking collaboration on the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary. The book also attempts to follow the separate threads of their lives, before, after and during the period of their long-distance acquaintance - The "Professor" James Murray is followed in his trajectory from poverty in Scotland to eventually undertaking the monumental task of editing the most ambitious dictionary until then; and the "Madman" William Chester Minor, a well-born American Yale medical school graduate and Civil War veteran committed to a mental asylum in suburban Berkshire, who found purpose in life through volunteering his time in submitting thousands of references for the dictionary in question.

I must admit to not being as intrigued by this book as I'd expected to be. I'd somehow bamboozled myself into anticipating a more in-depth study of the creation of the OED. However, as I've mentioned, the main focus of the books was actually on the biographies of these two historical personalities. In fact, I believe most of the book consisted of the biography of W.C. Minor - that is to say, a fair bit of it delved into such tangential topics as snapshots from the Civil War. Not a boring subject, certainly, but honestly not quite what I was looking for.

Additionally, I'd also been hoping for a more formal narrative, since I've suddenly developed an inexplicable craving for non-fiction written in a fairly academic style. This book, however, read like a non-fiction novel. Again, nothing wrong with that, per se - just not what I was looking for.

That said, the writer's occasional predilection for crowbarring in some of his own speculations I found off-puttingly unprofessional. I can't describe exactly what I mean without giving parts of the story away - let it suffice to say that there are less heavy-handed methods of upping a book's salaciousness quotient than making unfounded allegations.

To be fair, though, I can't really gauge for certain the basis behind any claim whatsoever made by Winchester, as I found the volume utterly bereft of references. Beyond a quick mention in the introduction of being privy to certain official documents that had not otherwise been made available to the general public, there really was no way to ascertain the authenticity of any of the statements laid out to me. Perfectly fine if the writer's intent is for the book to be taken as merely an interesting story, but I must say that its validity suffers as a result.

I give this book 3 stars, thought I acknowledge the blatant subjectivity of my belief in its mediocrity. Perhaps if you went into it knowing what to expect, you'll enjoy it much more than I did.

R holds forth on If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino

If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino

Harvest Books, 1982

How I got this book: The library

Why I read this book: I'd previously read The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy and adored it, so I thought I'd have a go at another well-known, well-regarded postmodern novel.

If on a winter's night a traveler follows the path of an unnamed reader - referred to throughout the narrative as "you"; that is, from a second person perspective - as he attempts to track down an unspoiled, complete copy of, um, If on a winter's night a traveler. What follows is a mind-boggling work of metafiction that meanders through the genres as the reader in question bumbles haplessly along on his way, blossoming as it does into a love story by way of a thriller of multi-layered complexity.

Interestingly, interspersed throughout the novel are various extracts from the random books that the unnamed readers stumbles upon on his search, our time with each separate extract limited by the protagonist's loss of the rest of the book, or indeed the book itself in its entirety. (This makes sense in the overall context of the novel, I swear.)

Frustratingly, these elements seemed to conspire against my complete enjoyment of the novel as a whole. While I certainly find the experimental nature of its structure fascinating and intellectually intriguing, I have to admit that I felt fairly alienated by the use of the second person narrative. Although I grant that my discomfort over this specific point may be down to my unfamiliarity with the second person perspective in fiction, it somehow felt odd to be told how I ought to be feeling at each point in the story - as though telling me how I ought to be feeling would instantly make it so. This alone made it especially difficult for me to identify with either the unnamed character that Calvino superimposed onto me, or any character at all within the main narrative arc of the novel.

Additionally, I was even less able to invest emotionally in any of the characters from the many disjointed extracts from imaginary books, as I soon got the picture that they would not appear in the overall novel again after the two dozen or so pages of their respective chapters had ended in their cruelly nail-biting cliffhangers.

Ultimately, If on a winter's night a traveler is like a delicately crafted work of conceptual art - I can't deny how brilliant the idea behind it is, and even now I am still filled with a sense of how very clever it all is. However, no matter how blown away by the concept I was, it cannot be denied that I found it impossible to be truly engrossed in the book itself, that I was unable to lose myself in its proceedings as I would have been able to in a more conventionally-styled novel or, as it were, in the finer details of a straight-forward canvas painting.

With that in mind, I give this book 3.5 stars, with points regretfully docked for its diminished entertainment value, and for reminding me of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book without granting me the benefit of actually being able to choose my own adventure.

R holds forth on The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

Flamingo, 1993

How I got this book: The Library

Why I read this book: It was on the list of 1001 books to read before you die.

A man besotted with the work of the scholar de Selby becomes an accomplice in a murder, then is taken on a hellish trip through rural Ireland, a place where the policemen appear to be utterly obsessed with bicycles.

It is difficult to be too specific in any synopsis of the plot, for fear of giving the climax away - well, giving it away as much as it actually can be given away. Most of the events of the plot whirl past dizzyingly, almost incomprehensibly, in Alice-in-Wonderland style.

In fact, that's probably a good indicator of how far you'll get with this book. If you were charmed by the random parade of characters and set-pieces in the Alice books, there's a pretty good chance you'll be charmed by the same in The Third Policeman.

As it happens, I had no patience for Alice; no patience for wackiness for its own sake.

Likewise, in the case of this book - While I totally understand that there is a certain humour in having your characters on the floor hunting for an object much too small to be seen by the naked eye, understanding that it was intended to be amusing did not translate to me, the reader, finding it amusing in the slightest.

I may have slightly maligned The Third Policeman in comparing it to the Alice stories. In its favour, there is intended to be more depth to it than the mere representation of a child's flight of fantasy, a certain depth that has no doubt been integral to its association with the TV series Lost.

Actually, the section of the book I most enjoyed were really the little deviations that the unnamed narrator goes on, expounding upon the unhinged theories of de Selby - perhaps, terribly enough, because they gave the additional benefit of respite from all the "wackiness" of the main flow of the plot.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to give The Third Policeman only 2 stars, but with the caveat that some are definitely going to enjoy it more than I have.

R holds forth on Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

This is the first contact, as it were, that I've had with the works of Flannery O'Connor. I believe the Southern Gothic genre, of which this is a quintessential example, is one that is uniquely linked to the culture and geography of its country of origin... which may serve to explain why I (a non-American) had never heard of this title until I came across it on Goodreads. (I suspect that, internationally, lists of "classic" English language novels tend to be biased against American literature in favour of British writers... but I digress.)

Anyway, I've heard Wise Blood described as a comic novel - but if you approach it anticipating a barrel of laughs, you'll probably be sorely disappointed. That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind; it hasn't necessarily failed as a humourous work. The thing is, the humour here is in the uneasy semi-reality of the scenes, with the characters doing outrageous things that you could almost imagine someone doing in real life, although the very thought of it remains deeply unnerving. Wise Blood is chockfull of genuinely weird stuff that strays to the farthest end of dark comedy. If it causes any laughter at all I can only imagine that it manifests very occasionally, and primarily in nervous, slightly horrified little giggles.

Beyond that, if I'm honest, I scarcely know what to think about it. In that case, you may wonder, why bother to attempt to review it at all? Well, there aren't many books that leave me as bewildered as Wise Blood did. Generally speaking, the books I've read can be broadly categorized into two distinct categories - Books I Liked or Books I Didn't Like. My bewilderment at this book belongs to a unique category of its own; I rarely read a book that I think I like, though I find the memory of it vaguely unsettling.

It's a showcase of the dark side of religion, an exhibition of individuals for which religion and penitence act as a conduit for madness. Basically it's just fantastically bleak and now, having given it 3.5 stars, I might go off and stare at a wall for a moment to clear my mind.

R holds forth on The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Penguin, 2000

How I got this book: The library

Why I read this book: It's a school story and I like school stories.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is about the titular teacher, an unwelcome iconoclast in a stuffy Edinburgh primary school, more interested in giving her young students a humanities-based general education than in sticking to the prescribed syllabus. From among her students a few favourites emerge, soon to be known as the Brodie Set, whom she takes into her confidence and attempts to mould into "the creme de la creme".

But in this case, her influence over her students does not culminate in the happy resolution that many school stories tend to end with. Because this is Dead Poets Society's inspirational message gone wrong.

The various synopses I'd read before deciding to pick the book up had led me to believe that it was another uplifting school story, dealing largely with the students' evolution under the tutelage of their eccentric teacher. As such, in spite of the short length of this novella, I had been expecting swaths of character development and lots of delightful little classroom scenes about how wonderful it is to be taught by an unconventional lady "in her prime".

However, the characterizations only scratch the surface. Each member of the Set is tagged with a label early on - "known for sex" or "for being a nobody whom everybody could blame", and so on - and throughout the rest of the story they conform to these labels steadfastly.

Understandably, that may well be perceived as a narrative flaw, but I reckon that it doesn't necessarily have to be. In fact, I'd argue that most of the characters are pretty much just peripheral - even several members of the Brodie Set - despite the synopsis on the back cover that suggests that the novella is primarily about teacher-student interaction. As the title suggests, and as I stated in the opening sentence of this review, this book is about Miss Jean Brodie - the prime years of her life, and her subsequent decline. It is, to a small extent, about her students as characters in their own rights; and to an extent it is also about Brodie's relationship with one student in particular, whose perspective is returned to the most in the narrative.

Above all, at the heart of the story, I think, is Miss Brodie herself, the tragedy of a blinkered, artistic temperament, and the loneliness of not finding a place of one's own in society even in middle and old age.

This story will be staying with me for a little while. I give it 4 stars.

R holds forth on The Loser by Thomas Bernhard

The Loser by Thomas Bernhard

Knopf, 1991

How I got this book: The library

Why I read this book: It has (a fictionalized version of) Glenn Gould in it.

Three men study together under Horowitz in their youth - One of them, a Canadian named Glenn Gould, ascends to the highest level of talent and fame. Another leaves the world of music, ostensibly with no regrets. The third, having firmly believed in his own virtuosity and potential until hearing Gould play, falls apart; he is the eponymous loser of the novel. If it can be described at all, The Loser is a rambling treatise about how their time together as friends went on to colour the rest of their lives.

One of the things that intrigued me about this book is that it had been described to me as consisting of one long, run-on paragraph. Just to clear things up: As it turns out, there are actually a grand total of four paragraphs throughout the entire length of the novel, although all four of them start on the first page. So yes- while this edition has a font that is reasonably sized and margins that are relatively wide, it does in fact mostly consist of a 150-page monologue.

That said, the slight trepidation I felt upon flipping through the pages and not finding any paragraph indentations was ultimately allayed, because this monstrous passage is not remotely as unreadable as it might have been. The stream-of-consciousness style certainly helps: It feels conversational rather than impenetrably Joycean and dense, and the whole effect is similar to having a slightly drunk stranger regale you about his life in a tavern somewhere - as, I suppose, it may well have been intended to be.

There is a downside to the monologue style of the prose, unfortunately: Our drunk stranger in question tends to get repetitive and long-winded, repeating the same ideas again and again and again (etc.). There is no doubt that the cyclical pattern of the narrative is intentional - perhaps for the purposes of mirroring the variations on a basic theme that are woven through a piece of music - so I certainly can't fault Bernhard for not having crafted his piece with such detail. As it is, as engaged as I was by the conversational monologue of his narrative at the beginning, after reading for the umpteenth time that the titular "loser" in question fell apart "because of Glenn", I started to almost feel physically tired just looking at that same phrase again.

I think the thing to note about The Loser is that, ultimately, its main focus isn't on a singular climactic point. It may help to know that the main thing is the process - Getting lost in the stylistic meanderings, windmilling back over and over to the same themes of perfectionism, failure, family and how horrible Austria is. (In fact, look out for the depictions of Austria - for me the savageness with which Bernhard rips into his homeland is one of the funniest things in the book.)

With that in mind, I'm giving The Loser 4 stars for the finesse with which it took me on its rambling journey.

R holds forth on Animal Farm by George Orwell

Animal Farm by George Orwell

New Windmills, 1972 (I totally can't find a picture of the right cover, by the way... The one on the left is just one I picked at random.)

How I got this book: It was lying about the house.

Why I read this book: I read this one some years ago, when I was 13... So, really I read it because it has animals in it and I liked animals.

Well, I think it would be fairly accurate to say that Animal Farm's reputation precedes it. On the surface, it is a fairytale (as Orwell originally subtitled it), a bit of fantasy about a farm full of animals who manage to drive the farmer away and take over the farm. Beyond that, it was actually written as a pretty direct critique of the Soviet Union as it was up to the end of World War 2, when the book was published.

As I remember it, from the very beginning of my knowledge of its existence, it has been indelibly associated in my mind with the Soviet Union - It had been represented to me as an allegory of Stalinism, and as I was vaguely aware of that as I read the book. I wasn't remotely mature enough or sufficiently in tune with world history to really understand what that meant, but I certainly was vaguely aware of it. I mean, the main reason I read it was because of the animals! What does a clueless kid care about politics or people who lived a long time ago in a country far, far away?

As it is, it was only when I later learned about the situation which inspired Orwell to write this allegory, when I finally began to gain a proper inkling about the historical context of the book, that I understood why it was considered so controversial a publication at the time.

It is interesting to note the various reasons that have been given - or can be deduced - for the banning of the novella.

I think that the heart of why this book has had such extreme reactions to it in the sixty-five years since its publication is that - assuming no prior knowledge of Orwell's anti-Stalin intent - it can be broadly interpreted as being about any political regime at all that makes great populist promises and ends up letting its supporters down... Hence the number of governments that have opposed it over the years, in states that may have nothing really to do with the USSR on face value.

Of course, such censorship theoretically does have a lovely way of backfiring. On the one hand the masses within these Animal Farm-deprived states may be prevented from exposure to anti-government ideas. But to the few who are somehow clued in to what they're missing, and certainly on the international level, such state-wide censorship by the Powers that Be is pretty much an admission of guilt... which would have exactly the opposite effect to what the state-controlled censorship boards might have hoped for.

Additionally, the Wikipedia article on banned books yielded an unexpected piece of information - Animal Farm has been banned in schools in The United Arab Emirates since 2002 because "it contained text or images that goes against Islamic and Arab values". I haven't any access to the original reference used in the article, so I'm assuming that this must be due to the anthropomorphic portrayal of pigs. From what I understand, it is also banned in private secular schools for non-Muslim expatriates; my general desire for the separation of religion and state means that this is disappointing news.

That said, it might be pertinent to note that the book isn't banned throughout the country but only in schools... I do wonder if its ban in schools is more a symbolic gesture than an actual restriction in this case, considering the book's availability through other channels. The school ban is particularly interesting because it suggests that age was a factor in determining whether the book constitutes appropriate reading material, even in the realm of religious censorship. Considering how my appreciation of the allegorical nature of Animal Farm has grown over the years, the age factor is certainly an interesting question to raise.

(Relatedly, there is an interesting review/article/essay thing about the impact of Animal Farm written by Christopher Hitchens, who does a much better job than I've done here... Although, as this other guy points out, the book actually is accessible in many Muslim countries, unlike what Hitchens mentions - so, pinch of salt, I guess?)

Top Ten Tuesday: R's Top Ten Books I'm Dying to Read

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list complete with one of our bloggers answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND sign Mister Linky at the bottom to share with us and all those who are participating. If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Don't worry if you can't come up with ten every time..just post what you can!


My current TBR list is a 13-page Word document in font size 10, arranged in a terrifyingly haphazard manner, so I have to admit that it's pretty difficult for me to narrow down the books I want to devour to just ten. But I finally managed to summon up my organizational abilities, so here are the

TOP TEN BOOKS I’M DYING TO READ

1.The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark
There are certain themes whose presence in a book generally means that I will instantly develop an interest in reading it. In this case, the applicable theme is that of idealistic teachers pioneering novel forms of education on their hapless students. As far as I can tell, this book definitely has that covered.

2. English, August: An Indian Story
Upamanyu Chatterjee
Based on the reviews I’ve read, this book looks like something that I might be able to identify with. For the record, it’s not a direct parallel between his life and mine (I thought it might be a good idea to put that on the table considering the descriptions of his vices in the synopses floating around the Internet). But it's the whole confluence of cultures in a post-colonial world thing that makes me think I'll enjoy this one.

3. Wanderlust: A History of Walking
Rebecca Solnit
I enjoy walking. I really enjoy walking. In fact, I enjoy walking to the extent of wanting to read books about walking… instead of actually walking. Yeah. That must make some sense, in some way or another.

4. Meetings with Remarkable Trees
Thomas Pakenham
I must be going through some kind of outdoorsy phase, which is just as well. Trees are our friends, not just potential books that have yet to be called to service. Anyway, this book is about old trees that have been witness to various historical events – so it’ll be a combination of pretty pictures and history lessons all in one go.

5. Wise Blood
Flannery O’Connor
It’s about some guy who was raised in fire-and-brimstone Pentecostalism, fought in the Korean War, came back to find his family have disappeared, and starts preaching a strange brand of Christianity of his own creation. I don’t know about you, but I like the sound of that. Also, it’s the only Flannery O’Connor book I can find in the library, which is a shame because I think I’m really going to like her.

6. Samarkand
Amin Maalouf
I like fiction based on people who really existed and events that really happened, and in this book we get both of these together in one neat little package. It manages to be about both the pre-Renaissance Renaissance man Omar Khayyam and the sinking of the Titanic at the same time. Which is awesome.

7. A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines

Janna Levin

Another book about real people and real events. This one is about the mathematicians Gödel and Turing, both of whom I feel vaguely fond of (especially Alan Turing, poor dear Turing). I'm not sure how it manages to be about both of them at the same time considering that they never knew each other, but I look forward to finding out.

8. Bel Canto

Ann Patchett

So this one isn't technically about real people and real events, but it kind of is inspired by a real event. Hence my interest... Well, no, not exactly. It's difficult to explain why one would want to read a book based on true crime or, in this case, a prolonged hostage situation. But there it is. It just sounds really interesting.

9. A High Wind in Jamaica

Richard Hughes

The Wikipedia page for this book describes it as having paved the way for books like The Lord of the Flies, so I figure it's worth a shot. Plus I'm very happy to look for new opportunities to read about pirates and be freaked out by creepy children.

10. The Woman in the Dunes

Kobo Abe

I've heard so much about how great Kobo Abe supposedly is, but I have to admit that I've been putting off reading it because it just feels like one of those surreal, weirdly mind-blowing books that you just have to be in the right state of mind to appreciate. And right now I suspect my head might be too full of college stuff to fully appreciate existential stories about digging a useless hole. But one day soon.

So what books are you dying to read?

Next week the topic is: Top Ten Favorite Book Quotes

R holds forth on Important Artifacts and Personal Property from... by Leanne Shapton

Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry by Leanne Shapton

Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2009

How I got this book: The library; O, hallowed repository of knowledge.

Why I read this book: The title attracted my attention. (It is strangely gratifying to type it out in full.) Also, there are pictures. Lots of pictures.

So basically, this book chronicles the blossoming and subsequent disintegration of the relationship between Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris... through presenting their mementos as auction lots.

I think it is interesting to point out that, as far as the basic narrative goes, no new ground is broken here. It's pretty openly indicated in the blurbs and synopsis on the back cover: The story here is the age-old boy-meets-girl-and-then-they-break-up plot line that is seen all too often in fiction (and, unfortunately but pertinently, also in real life).

But that doesn't matter, because the narrative isn't the point. The first of the couple's books to be put under the hammer in the fictional auction - well, I think it was the first; my memory may have deceived me... still, it's only a minor point, so heigh ho, on we go - is Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau, which struck me as being a bit of a parallel to what Shapton was endeavouring to do here. From what I've gathered thanks to it being on my to-read list, Exercises in Style features the same scenario played out over and over again, each time retold in a new style...

So there you have it - The point of the book is that this is an age-old story retold in a totally different way, disdaining regular prose for the elaborately mocked-up auction lots. Considering that Shapton is primarily known as an artist, I guess that's the artist's heightened sense of presentation evincing itself.

The main thing I like about the whole conceit of auction lots is that, if you think about it, it's actually so mundane. I don't mean mundane as in boring, I mean that it's something familiar, something that a reader could connect more easily to his or her life, especially considering how it deals with a theme that - as I mentioned briefly earlier - occurs frequently in the realm of reality.

I understand that Shapton drew inspiration for this volume when going through auction lots and realizing how much could be gleaned about the owners' lives. And that's what it is, really. The little souvenirs in the book could easily have been some of the random knick-knacks that any non-fictional, real live person has accumulated over the course of a relationship - or, actually, over the course of his or her life. And, in fact, if the non-fictional, real live person in question were to sit down and go through their belongings, arranging them chronologically as has been done in this book, a fairly accurate timeline of their lives could very well be revealed.

As a direct result of all that, my belief somehow has been suspended nearly as far as it can possibly go, and there's a part of me that almost believes that Lenore and Harold exist, somewhere out there. The fact that the actors' names aren't mentioned anywhere in book (as far as I could tell) adds to the whole Twilight Zone feeling, although a Google search quickly surrendered their names up to me. (But I shan't tell you because that would totally spoil the magic of it all.)

Incidentally, in reading up on stuff for this review, I found out that the book has been optioned to be made into a film starring Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman. Now, I like Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman. But the inexplicably visceral Twilight Zone thing inside me did in fact lead me to think, No! What a cop-out, they aren't the real Doolan and Morris! - as if the real Doolan and Morris actually existed.

So yes, to sum it all up, I am in fact a creepy voyeur with a shaky grasp of reality. Also, while I'm not sure if this is the kind of book I'd pore through over and over again, I predict that I'm going to be fondly thinking about "that auction book thing" for awhile yet. It gets 4 stars from me.

R holds forth on The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Villard, 1996
How I got this book: The library!

Why I read this book: I'll go a bit more in depth about it later in this review, but it's pretty much down to this - Priests. In. Space. Awesome.

The monitoring of celestial radio waves pays off in The Sparrow when signals featuring extraterrestrial singing are picked up. Alien intelligent life is out there. While official diplomacy is stalled, the Jesuits organize a private mission of their own, as they have done for hundreds of years with far-flung civilizations back on Earth.

Years later, it is discovered that the sole survivor of the mission (and the main character of the book, for that matter) is Jesuit linguist Emilio Sandoz. He is eventually rescued from whatever Unnamed Nastiness it is that he’d endured, and finally returns to earth amid controversy. The bottom line – What was this Unnamed Nastiness, why the controversy, and what exactly happened out there?

Now, my experience with this book is pretty much a quintessential case of expectations having been set too high.

A number of factors contributed to my initial high expectations: The influential science fiction literary awards this book has won; the high rating on the Goodreads site (currently standing at an average of 4.17 out of 7,833 reviews – and I figured that 7,833 people seemed like a pretty reasonable sample size); the gorgeous cover (it made me want to leave it sitting around in conspicuous areas of my room to act as part of the décor); and most importantly…

I like the idea of books about priests, and I like the idea of books about space. Put the two of them together and as far as I’m concerned, it’s on – as it were – like Donkey Kong.

Add all of that together and I was raring to get at this book. I won’t lie to you, as I checked it out from the library and held it in my hands, I was convinced that I was about to become acquainted with my new favourite novel.

Similarly, though, a number of factors contributed to my bitter disappointment:

The first thing that really, really struck me – certainly for the first half of the book, before the depressing and messed-up stuff really sets in – was that everybody spends the entire time exhibiting how supposedly funny they are and laughing their heads off at each other. Well, I wouldn’t have minded this in the least if the characters actually were funny. As it is, a lot of these droll little conversations probably suffer from the ubiquitous “You Had To Have Been There” syndrome... You know, when something might have been funny if you were privy to it as it is happening, but it turns out to be a lot less funny when retold secondhand, or on a piece of paper. That really frustrated me; possibly a little bit more than it should have, had I not been anticipating really awesome characters demonstrating their mastery of the art of conversation.

The second thing that struck me was the heavy use of character archetypes, because when her characters aren’t spending their time literally ROFLing, they’re busy fitting themselves neatly into character tropes. And I don’t mean science fiction tropes, mind! I mean ethnic stock characters, and priests either deeply repressed or affiliated to the mob. Considering that Russell is a biological anthropologist, it felt a bit like she was cramming in as many of the cultural anthropology stereotypes she’d picked up (in undergraduate Anthropology 101, presumably) as possible. Ooh, it's kind of harsh of me to say that. But it's kind of true.

And another thing, something kind of silly and petty but which never fails to unnerve me a little bit – There is a character somewhere in there who appears to be a slightly fictionalized version of the author. Kudos to Russell for not making herself the main character, but still. Still. These things tend to bother me because it makes me feel like I’m staring straight into the author’s psyche. Which is fine if the author has written an introspective, semi-philosophical piece of work, but generally not so much in other cases.

Anyway, thanks for bearing with my overwhelming negativity up to this point. I didn’t quite dislike the book that much actually; there certainly were aspects of it that I really enjoyed. As I mentioned earlier, I was really drawn to the book in the first place because of its basic idea: A Jesuit mission goes to space and meets aliens, and much religious angst ensues. The bits of the book that dealt with that directly I generally liked – the creation of an imaginary civilization with its own conventions, gender roles and rigid social order.

Another thing I liked was the conceit of alternating the chapters between scenes about the expedition itself and scenes of Sandoz’s recovery after his return. The way she juxtaposed Sandoz’s pre- and post-expedition personalities was, well, just brilliant. Seriously, Russell’s powers of foreshadowing are breath-taking and awesome and added a whole lot to the overall motion of the plot. Well, it added a whole lot to my personal appreciation of The Sparrow, anyway.

Overall, however, while I enjoyed the basic story line and the themes involved, I felt like they could have been presented better. And by “better” I mostly mean “with less scenes featuring the characters falling about laughing about things that aren’t really that funny”. (Sorry for bringing it up so much, but that in particular really irked me!) I’m giving The Sparrow 2.5 stars – I’m not failing it because I still felt pretty involved with the story. In fact I think I might even read the sequel, Children of God, though I’m not so sure whether it’s the sadist or the optimist in me that compels me to do so.

R holds forth on The Beach by Alex Garland

The Beach by Alex Garland
Penguin, 1996
How I got this book: The library

Why I read this book: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Some time ago, I made an exception to my usual rule of reading the book before watching the version that moves and talks like it’s really happening – I watched the movie adaptation of The Beach. You know, that particularly fine piece of cinematic splendour (and I say this with heavy, heavy irony) starring the freshly post-Titanic Leo DiCaprio.

And then, some years later, I randomly chanced across the book in the library. So I read it.

In a nutshell, the book is about a secret, closed island community off the coast of Thailand set up by backpackers bored of the overrun tourist-trap beaches on the mainland. It follows a young backpacker (and, to an extent, his acquaintances) as he attempts to reach the community when a mysterious man named after a Disney character gives him a map. This man then proceeds to kill himself in a spectacularly gory way.

Interested? Yeah, I kind of was too. Especially because I’d heard that it differed quite significantly from the movie. What I hadn’t realized at the time was that differing from the movie adaptation does not necessarily mean the original book is any better.

According to Wikipedia (the most accurate source of information known to humanity), the author Alex Garland claims to have accumulated a larger number of movies watched than books read. Yeah. It shows. The Beach comes across as a book that is very much a product of cinematic techniques.

It consists of a collection of short chapters, each one something like one of the scenes in a thriller on the big screen – punchy, engaging, full of anticipation. That’s the best thing about the book, in my opinion: You can’t stop turning the pages because the tension keeps building, even when the characters aren’t doing anything very important in particular. Especially because the characters aren’t doing anything important in particular.

Because if there’s one thing the movies have taught me about idyllic resort islands (cases in point: Jurassic Park, Jaws), it’s that you get your butt out of there quick as you can. Because Bad Things Will Happen and You Don’t Want That. Unless, as a member of a hypothetical movie audience watching the latest blockbusting extravaganza – or as a reader anticipating a climax to an engrossing thriller – you actually want bad things to happen. You want to see sacrifices, you want things to blow up, you want people to expire violently and you really like that sort of thing. In which case:

1. I’m sure you understand how frustrating it gets when your long-awaited fix leaves you only moderately fulfilled; and
2. you are a horrible sadist. (But that’s okay. So am I.)

There is a moment within the climax when the shortfalls of Garland’s movie-inspired style make a conspicuous appearance. It’s a particular point when it seems the scriptwriter in him has envisaged a full-blown action sequence, but feels that words are unable to evoke the same excitement that a technicolour punch-‘em-up would. So just when I was bouncing in my seat, keen to know more about what happened next… He left the scene hanging and ended the chapter with a cheerily frustrating ellipsis, like so: “…” That’s right, he made his climax fade to black like the cliffhanger at the end of a movie.

I could have wept in frustration.

So here’s my verdict:
If you’re looking for a reasonably intriguing thriller, this book is for you. But if you’re looking for character development, you might want to look somewhere else.

I give The Beach 2.5 stars, and largely for the chapters when Richard wanders through the jungle pretending to be in Apocalypse Now.

R holds forth on 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

84, Charing Cross Street by Helene Hanff

Penguin, 1990
How I got this book: The library.
Why I read this book: I heard that it's about books... and I like books.

Right then.

I cried.

I’m just going to lay my cards down right at the start. I wasn’t chopping onions. I didn’t get something in my eye. I cried, like a baby with a stinky nappy and an empty tummy in the middle of the night.

What can I say? I may have cried watching the first Hulk movie, but I promise you that my judgment isn’t really that skewed. This little book is seriously moving.

84, Charing Cross Road is a collection of letters sent between the NYC denizen Helene Hanff in and the employees of the secondhand bookshop – or bookstore – Marks & Co., located at the titular address in London.

It starts out as Hanff’s bibliophilic quest to hunt down some of the more obscure titles on her TBR list. It’s something I’m relatively familiar with, so in a way I felt like I identified with her right from the start.

I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to ‘I hate to read new books,’ and I hollered ‘Comrade!’ to whoever owned it before me.

A funny secondhand book enthusiast? My kind of person.

Over the years, the relationship between the booksellers and their faraway customer grows. It becomes apparent that she matters greatly to them (and they to her) despite never having met in person. It’s just delightful to watch how Hanff’s little gestures of kinship melt the stiff-upper-lip professionalism of her initial correspondent Frank Doel, as the restrained decorum of his early letters gradually seep away and are replaced with warmth.

This edition has a foreword by Anne Bancroft, who played Helene Hanff in the film (which I haven’t seen) based on the book. In it, she writes that attachment to the volume stemmed from how these little exchanges reminded her of a friend of hers… That’s really how it was for me. Through the letters between Helene and the employees at the little bookshop half a world away, I could feel the echoes of conversations I’ve had with friends – both over a distance and “in real life”; both still with us and now lost.

I’m making the assumption that, if you’re reading this blog, you have a passion for books and an appreciation for the border-transcending sense of community shared by readers all around the world. To you I holler, ‘Comrade!’ and recommend this book. Even if you find there are elements of these letters that you might not unconditionally adore – Helene’s somewhat aggressive cajoling, perhaps, or Frank’s indomitable reticence – the booklover in you will identify with some of it, somewhere.

Strange as I feel about rating a collection of real correspondences (I’m giving stars to somebody’s life!), I’m giving 84, Charing Cross Road 4 stars.

R holds forth on The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom by Alexander McCall Smith

The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom by Alexander McCall Smith
Abacus, 2004
How I got this book: Borrowed it from the library.
Why I read this book: I was playing tennis with a friend when she recommended it to me. She said she felt like she was trapped in the opening story. You might understand my reluctance to go on with the anecdote if you've read the story in question.

The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom consists of a trilogy of comic short novels – Portuguese Irregular Verbs, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, and At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances – featuring the bungling German professor of Romance Philology Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, his duo of equally bungling friends, and a cast of characters who either join in with the bungling or end up victims of it.

This is the first I’ve read of the intimidatingly prolific Alexander McCall Smith (How does the man sleep?), and having read these stories – for this trilogy is really a volume of short stories rather than three full-length novels – I must say that I’m very keen to delve into some of his more well-known series.

This tome is simply charming. I can’t think of any adjective that better encapsulates everything I feel about it. I was charmed from the get-go by those quaint titles that McCall Smith tends to give his books, and then found myself successively charmed by everything else: the charmingly awkward characters; the charmingly light-hearted plots; the charmingly pleasant prose...

It probably ought to be mentioned that, on a very basic and obvious level, the humour of these stories is often derived from the heavy use of stereotypes. The Italians are boisterous and tend to gesticulate wildly; the Irish drink a lot; the Indians are either psychic holy men or casual law-breakers; the English are alarmingly eccentric; the Colombians are obsessed with bringing about the revolution; and, of course, the Germans are proper, logical and utterly horrified by lack of decorum.

Additionally, with the stereotype of bumbling brainbox professors being played out for laughs, there is a strong element of Schadenfreude, as it were. Basically, we’re encouraged to laugh at poor von Igelfeld as he traps himself in corners with his ineptitude.

Despite all that has been said, however, none of this stereotyping is overtly mocking or mean-spirited in the least. Trust me on this one: I’m the sort of person who can’t watch The Office because it gives me such a serious case of second-hand embarrassment that I want to defenestrate myself on the characters’ behalves. If it gets too sneery, my overdeveloped embarrassment gland means that I will avoid it like the plague.

That said, as a student, I've been in contact with academics for the better part of two years now, and part of the reason these stories are as charming as they are is that they genuinely manage to capture some truth in the whimsically awkward situations described. Trust me on this one, too: I’ve witnessed situations involving professors that were so horrifically awkward I wanted to defenestrate myself on their behalves... Yet somehow, these events have been unbelievably hilarious in retrospect – and these stories are perfectly spot-on in evoking that sensation.

I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a light, humorous read. In fact, I’d also recommend that anybody who thinks they may get stranded on an island anytime soon slip a copy of this into a water-tight bag and carry it around on their person. This is the sort of read whose gentle frivolities you can easily lose yourself in – even when stranded on an island with no food, no water, and no hope of rescue. Yes, The 2 1/2 Pillars of Wisdom may just have become one of my Desert Island Books, and it gets 5 stars from me.