Good Fiction Alert (the fiction, but perhaps not the alert)
I am reading a book by Kazuo Ishiguro right now, called, Never Let Me Go. This is the perfect book to follow after Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. Both books read in the realm of science fiction, but not, at the same time. I love how really well they go together! Love love love. There is a subtle blending, and yet they are so not the same story. Can I say that? Like that? I mean, really, they are more in the mind and mood of 1984ish sci-fi. The Future beware tales. But in Ishiguro's book, something else is happening besides, because he's using the future and the beware to explore, not the future, or to say beware, but to peek into the dark soul of man (between the lines). I am already sad it will be over before I know it, and then what will I read to keep this lovely discomfort up?
This calls up a question for me. What are my favorite books? What do they have in common? And why am I do stubbornly picky when it comes to fiction? For the most part, I mostly loathe much of contemporary fiction (that I've attempted to read). I can't make it through most of them, and if I do, I am dissatisfied. I hardly liked The Hour, or The Alchemist, or ...or I can't even remember the names of the other myriad of mediocre books I've read...Shipping News, ummmm...what? So why do I like the books I've read that I liked?
Oryx and Crake was weird, but I read the whole thing, and that's saying something in my case. Ishiguro is so subtle, not banging away at my head, but my heart thumps along happily as I read. I loved Empire of the Sun, Birdy, Lord of the Flies, Housekeeping, Alice Walkers first two books in The Color Purple series--The Color Purple and The Temple of My Familiar (great title!), Handmaid's Tale, Song of Solomon, Invisible Man, Adams Breed, Huck Finn, here I begin going farther backward...
To Cervantes and Erasmus and Pope and Rabelais and whoa! I don't have an answer. All I know is, I can't do entertainment reading. Reading to fill time and space. Reading to go away. TV is for that. Anyway...why am I writing this? I have nothing more intelligent to offer on the subject...will anyone send me more good fiction to read? Please?
This calls up a question for me. What are my favorite books? What do they have in common? And why am I do stubbornly picky when it comes to fiction? For the most part, I mostly loathe much of contemporary fiction (that I've attempted to read). I can't make it through most of them, and if I do, I am dissatisfied. I hardly liked The Hour, or The Alchemist, or ...or I can't even remember the names of the other myriad of mediocre books I've read...Shipping News, ummmm...what? So why do I like the books I've read that I liked?
Oryx and Crake was weird, but I read the whole thing, and that's saying something in my case. Ishiguro is so subtle, not banging away at my head, but my heart thumps along happily as I read. I loved Empire of the Sun, Birdy, Lord of the Flies, Housekeeping, Alice Walkers first two books in The Color Purple series--The Color Purple and The Temple of My Familiar (great title!), Handmaid's Tale, Song of Solomon, Invisible Man, Adams Breed, Huck Finn, here I begin going farther backward...
To Cervantes and Erasmus and Pope and Rabelais and whoa! I don't have an answer. All I know is, I can't do entertainment reading. Reading to fill time and space. Reading to go away. TV is for that. Anyway...why am I writing this? I have nothing more intelligent to offer on the subject...will anyone send me more good fiction to read? Please?
posted by name at 10:33:00 AM
1 Comments:
Why yes, yes I can. I'm interested to see what others have to offer. I propose a trip to Bookman's this weekend for:Rebecca Brown, Lydia Davis, Jack Kerouac, and others that people suggest here.
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