Nose in a Book

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

Read for: Gossip Girl

Last week on Gossip Girl, the characters were putting on this play.  The episode was a particularly bad and unbelievable one and I thought they were trying to draw parallels between the play and what was going on in the show.  Since I’d never read the book, or seen the movie or the play, I had no idea what was going on.  I decided I should read the book and then try to understand the episode better.  I still don’t think the episode was all that great but this post is about the book, not Gossip Girl!

The  book takes place among the rich and privileged in New York in the 1870s.  The story begins just as the main character, Newland Archer, has become engaged to his sweetheart, May.  May’s cousin has just arrived from Europe where amidst some scandal, she has left her emotionally abusive husband.  Archer immediately feels an attraction for the cousin, Countess Olenska.  The story is mainly about the struggle Archer experiences as he falls in love with the Countess and realizes that his May, isn’t exactly what he had imagined her to be.

I really didn’t like the story.  I found the characters and their emotions completely unbelievable.  Archer had only a few encounters with the Countess before he was madly in love with her and she with him.  And I say encounters because they hardly even talked to each other.  They just seemed to sit around and stare at each other.  Kind of a strange basis for a love affair.  There just wasn’t any depth to the characters.

I also found the story really slow.  I had a really hard time getting into the story and even then I just kept waiting for something to happen and nothing ever did!  I could tell the whole story in a couple of sentences and there wouldn’t be any important information missing!  But I won’t, because I don’t want to spoil the ending for those of you who may still want to read the book.

This book did win a Pulitzer and in spite of everything else I’ve said about the book, I can see why it did.  The writing is really good.  It was very poetic and the descriptions were particularly good.  At times her writing was satirical as well.  She allowed us to see the ridiculousness of some of the social traditions that existed at that time.

Overall, I think it’s definitely a book worth reading as long as you aren’t expecting much of a story.

I came across this review of Breaking Dawn and it’s hilarious.  Even if you liked the Twilight series (which as you may recall, I didn’t), you might still enjoy this review.  Check it out.

I’ve found another reading challenge that I’ve decided to participate in this year.  This one started on March 20th and goes until June 20th.  It’s called the Once Upon a Time Challenge.  It involves reading books from the fantasy, fairy tales, folklore and mythology genres.  My goal is to complete Quest the First, which involves reading five books from any of the above areas.

I already plan on reading Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary by Brandon Mull and rereading The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (because John gave it to me for Valentine’s Day).  But once again, I’m open to suggestions if anyone knows of any good books that fit the bill!

I have decided to participate in the Orbis Terrarum Challenge this year.  Every month for the next ten months, I have to read a book by a different author from a different country.  Then I will review my book on my blog.  I’ve looked ahead at a bunch of our book club books for this year and a lot of them will work for this challenge.  A rule I’ve added for myself is no rereading books.  I think it’s going to be fun!

For March I read three books by Alexander McCall Smith.  He was born in Zimbabwe and now lives in Scotland.  (For the challenge, you can use the country of birth or residence of the author.  I think I’ll use Scotland.) Since I already reviewed McCall Smith, I’m not going to do another review of one of his books.  Any suggestions for the other months?

Here are some of the other books I’m planning on reading:

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton – America

The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis – Ireland

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy – Hungary

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom – Holland

Thats five books, I need five more.  Jamie, I’m looking to you to come up with a Canadian one.

Read for: Orbis Terrarum Challenge

I was going to write a book review for my most recent read, but I realized that I really like all of the books by the same author and since he tends to write series’ I wouldn’t really be able to do a plot summary without giving away details from previous book.  So I decided to review his writing in general.

McCall Smith has written four series’ of novels.  He has also written a couple stand alone novels and a few collections of short stories.  I was also surprised to discover that he has written several children’s books!

The first series I was exposed to was the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.  This series is about a woman in Botswana who starts a detective agency.  Each novel contains simples mysteries that she solves. There are nine novels in this series so far with a tenth to be released in April 2009.

The second series I read was The Portuguese Irregular Verbs Series.  There are only three novels in this series and I read them a long time ago and I didn’t like them as much as the others so I’ll just leave it at that!

The next series I read was the Isabel Dalhousie series.  This one is probably my favourite.  The books are about a woman called Isabel Dalhousie who is a philosopher and the editor of a poorly read philosophy magazine.  Isabel is a bit nosy (but likable) quite often takes it upon herself to help people solve the problems in their lives. So far, there are five novels in this series.

The last series of novels is unique.  They were originally written as a serial in a Scottish newspaper and then collected into a novel.  It’s makes reading easy because it’s divided into nice short chapters.  This series originally centred around an apartment block and told the stories of the occupants and the people that came into their lives.  The story has since expanded as characters have moved on from that particular address.  So far, there are four novels in this series.

I love reading these books.  Something about McCall Smith’s writing style is so simple and smooth and easy to read.  The stories are light and funny and uplifting.  He definitely likes to poke fun, but it’s polite and lighthearted.  Although he writes his novels in series’ it’s not neccesary to reread (or even read at all) any of the previous novels to understand the plot and enjoy the characters.

And that’s another thing, all of his characters are enjoyable, even the less likable ones. My favourite character is from the serial.  His name is Bertie and he’s six years old.  He has an extremely overbearing and slightly (or maybe more than slightly) insane mother whom he deals with very well for such a young child.  McCall Smith allows the reader to see into his thoughts and without being precocious he is very intelligent and insightful and believable.  I have a six year old and I can just imagine him thinking the kinds of thoughts that Bertie does.

I would reccomend almost any of his books to almost anyone.  The books are easy to read and clean and uplifting.  Just about anybody would enjoy reading these books.