Book Description
In the tradition of Middlesex and Geek Love comes a stylish, fascinating, and sometimes disturbing first novel about one Siamese twin's plot to kill the other, written by a spectacularly cool and well–connected author.
Customer Reviews:
Psychological drama in a science fiction setting.......2007-04-11
Conjoined twins Nora and Blanche inhabit a modern America in which rights for "twofers" are a hot-button political issue. Nuclear testing in the mid-1900's has spawned a strong and vocal minority of two-headed twins. Should 6/5 of a person be allowed to full Constitutional votes? Is masturbation by one half of a twofer considered incest? Twincest? If a twofer commits a crime, which one is responsible? If one twin's ex-lover falls in love with the other twin, is there awkwardness in future sexual relations? Let's not even discuss twin pairs who share one torso but have different sexual orientations.
Despite the setting, Jackson's novel is not traditional science fiction, but rather a psychological drama. Nora's twin Blanche has been asleep for over a decade. As she starts to exert some unconscious control over their shared body, waking twin Nora wishes to exterminate her. Nora is caught in crosshairs between the extremely vocal twofer-rights community (a parody of itself) and the underground right-to-vivisection separation community.
Jackson's debut novel is a lofty attempt to address the complex issue of identity. It is filled with symbolism--the splitting of the hydrogen atom as a symbol for radioactive fallout genetic mutations, a dollhouse which represents the dummy houses used in atomic bomb testing in the Nevada desert, Boolean operators and Venn diagrams for describing twin relationships, and an identity puzzle for Blanche and Nora. Even the title of the novel has dual meanings in science and personal identity. The story is told in chapters that alternate between the present, Blanche and Nora's childhood, collected scientific publications, twofer propaganda, personal lists, and lyrics.
The storytelling style is fresh and unique, but the base material is muddled. The core of the novel is Nora's desire to rid herself of Blanche--but is Blanche really asleep and not in control? The symbolism is heavy-handed at times, and the on-going semi-insanity of the main character grows tedious. The twofer-rights activists are painted as a satire of themselves, but even that grows old. Once you throw in a "normal" roommate who is undergoing surgery to become the internal twofer that she truly is, the book becomes an impossible mess of science, politics, relationships, and psychology.
This book bends your mind back on itself........2007-03-22
I can understand the haters on here who cry about how there's no characters worth cheering for or whatever Dick Francis-Stephen Kingish things they're expecting from a "good read." Sirs, it's only that, well, you see, Jackson is a writer, the same way Faulkner or Joyce or that guy who wrote Tristam Shandy or Proust or Woolf were writers. I thought this book was hilarious, sly, cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it might be too much for some readers, but for those willing to bend their minds and enter new territory it's got untold riches and rewards to offer. Jackson's artistic voice is so original and unique it might frighten some. Maybe we're still not used to female writers so uninhibited and fearless in their addressing of feminine issues and amoral desires. Brave new future of literature, thy name is SHELLEY JACKSON!
Surreal to the point of incoherence.......2007-03-16
I picked up the book because the premise was intriguing, and it was compelling enough that I read all the way to the end. Gradually, though, it became surreal to the point of incoherence as Nora (or Blanche) experiences increasing hallucinations.
I'm not a lazy reader who can't tolerate any ambiguity or odd moments. But I feel that those pages should be a minority in a good book. Storytelling should come first. I am much more willing to wrestle with a difficult bit if I have something to work with. For the last hundred pages or so of this book, there just wasn't anything to grab on to. In addition, the frequent, unnecessary references to bodily functions were off-putting. If you like this sort of pretentious fiction, go right ahead- but if you like a book you can actually read, pick something else.
A wonderful plot idea---but why can't the author just tell the story???.......2007-02-10
Books like this always make me want to scream---Just tell the darn story! The plot idea is a great one---a slightly altered present reality where conjoined twins are more common than in the real world, mostly those with one body and two heads. They are enough of a minority to have advocate groups and so on. The narrator is one of a set of twins. Her conjoined sister has "fallen asleep" into what seems like a coma, and the narrator is seeking an illegal operation to have her sister's head removed. That's a plot that I think could carry most any book, but instead of USING the plot, the author tells around it with dream sequences and flashbacks and odd subplots and writing in forms like lists or poems that you just about go crazy trying to figure out what actually has happened. A great deal of the tale is about the childhood of the sisters, but in a few words you are left thinking that none of what is remembered actually really happened. I guess there are those who enjoy this kind of writing, but I can't say I really do. But although I kept thinking I would just stop reading, I never did---the plot was enough to keep me reading and TRYING to figure out what the ending was---and I can't say I'm sure I ever did. I can't really recommend this book, but I can say it's unusual and not something you will read a lot else like---for what that is worth!
Almost brilliant...but then not.......2006-12-11
The re-imagined world this book inhabits is nothing short of extraordinary. The minority "twofer" community holds a (cracked) mirror up to the gay and transgendered communities, feminism and religious minorities, pulling no punches with regards to any. Shelley Jackson has a rich imagination and a gift for prose and she knows it. During much of this book, I was rapt and swept up by the story.
What a disappointment, then, when it collapses into post-modern drudgery. Jackson lets her language get away from her in some passages (even after re-reading, I still have no clear idea of what happened to Nora and Blanche on the operating table), then completely loses her novel to gimmickry in the all-but-unreadable last 100 pages. The book's "Part Three" is so maddeningly self-referential that it's almost masturbatory -- a dull, seemingly endless list of overly thought-out entries in a "diary" that neither advances the story nor contributes fresh insights. "Part Four" tries to get back on track but instead settles for absurdity and evasion. Half Life's stubborn refusal to answer the multitude of questions it raises in its first three quarters could be read as Lynchian but instead comes off as a failed, half-baked writing experiment.
Too bad because there's a lot to admire in this book. I haven't read any of Shelley Jackson's other works, but I hope with her next book she drops the gimmicks and just tells a story. I'm sure it could be amazing.
Book Description
The second volume of this Eisner Award-winning series shifts the spotlight to detective Renee Montoya. Shes a damn fine cop but keeps her private life to herselfthat is, until someone reveals her secret while implicating her in a murder. The investigation redefines Montoyas relationship with her colleagues as well as with one of Gothams most notorious rogues. Bonus features consist of two stories providing additional details on Montoya, including the first comic written by Greg Rucka.
Customer Reviews:
Just Twisted Enough to Be Gotham.......2007-06-11
All the characters play out their roles in perfect pitch. The story throws Montoya's life through the wringer and the reasoning behind it just feels, well, twisted enough to make sense in Gotham. I liked the gritty cop's-life tale-telling style and the art complimented the story well. Overall, I loved this particular issue...
WOW.......2006-04-25
Gotham Central: Half a Life is about Gotham cop Renee Montoya. Montoya comes from a traditional Hispanic family. Her parents own a grocery. Their constant concern is that their only daughter is not eating enough, and when is she going to get married and give them grandchildren? That is a big problem for Renee, who is a lesbian and secretly dating a female chef.
When photos appear at work, Renee is mocked and scorned by her co-workers. Her brother confronts her - doesn't she know this will kill their parents? Tell them the photos were doctored, begs Renee. But things go from bad to worse when Renee is framed for the murder of the creep taking the photos. If she didn't do it, who did? And what does Two-Face have to do with this?
The story is right after the year-long No Man's Land storyline that took up the entire Batman comic line for the year of 1999. The beginning of Half a Life contains references to life during and after the federal designation of Gotham City as a condemned disaster area. Highly recommend the five No Man's Land GNs if you haven't read it.
DO NOT MISS THIS BOOK!!.......2005-06-30
Half a Life is the second story arc of a continuing comic called Gotham Central. And Gotham has never looked this gritty since Miller left for warmer climates. Michael Lark, who deserves immense amounts of money for the unbelievable work that he does, provides artwork that is to die for. It's dark and taut and each panel is perfection. Greg Rucka provides us with a very, very excellent character in Renee Montoya. She is tough as balls, intense, and very human. This is powerful storytelling.
Gotham Central has turned out to be one of the best comics in the past couple of years. Pushing Batman and his cast of crazy villains to the side as cameos and giving us the meat of the cops lives and cases provides hours of riveting reading. And rereading. Because these stories have depths and nuances that you didn't pick up the first time, trust me.
BTW, highly suggest Bruebaker and Lark's Scene of the Crime GN. Good stuff there too! Really good!
An Excellent Read.......2005-06-01
One of the best-written, most consistently entertaining mainstream comics on the shelves today, Gotham Central is the four-color cousin of popular TV police procedurals like Hill Street Blues, Homicide and NYPD Blue - telling stories of the DC Universe's toughest town from the perspective of the hardened detectives of the GCPD's Major Crimes Unit. Technically a Batman-family title, it is the one that is simultaneously the least and most reliant on the Dark Knight's presence, one that looms heavily over every story arc even if he himself rarely appears in them.
"RENEE MONTOYA HAS A SECRET." says the back cover blurb rather coyly. Specifically, she's a lesbian, a truth she's kept from her parents, her fellow officers, and her current partner, Crispus Allen. When she's outed and the man seemingly responsible turns up murdered, her backup gun found at the crime scene and incriminating evidence at her home, she finds herself under arrest and fighting not just for her job and her reputation, but for her life when help comes from a most unexpected source. Unexpected in the original run, at least. In this trade collection, DC generously includes two reprinted stories - all for only $14.99! - that serve as preludes (one from Batman Chronicles #16, the other from Detective Comics #747, both written by Greg Rucka but not illustrated by Michael Lark), shedding light on and setting up what originally seemed like an out of left field situation for those not well-versed in Gotham continuity.
The strength of this collection lies not in its overarching plot - solid though it is, despite some elements that suggest a fondness for Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter novels - but in its three-dimensional characterizations and smart dialogue, a trait that marks much of Rucka's work, both in comics and his novels, particularly when it comes to strong women. From the conflicted Montoya and her deeply predjudiced parents; to her arrogant but stand-up partner, Allen; to the bigoted taunts of her fellow officers, including the female ones, Rucka manages a realistic, nuanced take on a potentially exploitative subject, without any of the heavy handed objectifying, glamorizing or proselytyzing that one might expect in a relatively mainstream comic book. (Or, say, from Mark Millar.) Montoya works as the emotional center of the story, more about her than her sexual preference, because Rucka has given her multiple layers and not simply settled for a cipher on which to hang his story, an important factor that makes the ending work as well as it does, even when Batman and one of his classic rogues gets involved.
Gotham Central in general, and the "Half A Life" collection specifically, are stellar representatives of the best the form currently has to offer.
Average customer rating:
- Brilliant return to form
- Very good Naipaul
- Really 4.5 Stars and Any Naipal Book is Worth Reading
- But a Five-Star Career!
- Good Naipaul, But This Isn't Nearly as Splendid as "A House for Mr. Biswas"
|
Half a Life: A Novel
V.S. Naipaul
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Naipaul, V.S. | ( N ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 037570728X
Release Date: 2002-10-08 |
Amazon.com
Half a Life finds the veteran Booker and Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul on familiar territory, blending autobiography and fiction in an exploration of the "half lives" of individuals brought up in the English colonies and educated in metropolitan cities.
Naipaul's protagonist is Willie Somerset Chandran, named after Somerset Maugham's encounter with Willie's father in the 1930s while traveling "to get material for a novel about spirituality." Willie travels to England for his education, where he becomes "part of the special, passing bohemian-immigrant life of London of the late 1950s." Willie soon realizes that his colonial background allows him to write short stories for well-meaning white liberals, and he begins "to understand that he was free to present himself as he wished" and that he could "remake himself and his past" through his writing. The effect is suffocating rather than liberating, and he marries a vaguely sketched "girl or young woman from an African country," who has read his one published book. Willie begins another "half life" in colonial Mozambique, where he soon tires of the domestic and sexual tedium of plantation life and flees to Germany, mournfully reflecting that "I have been hiding for too long."
This is classic Naipaul, with its effortless dissection of the damaging personal consequences of post-war decolonization, but its virtue seems its primary vice, as the novel feels like a conflation of several earlier Naipaul books, including The Mimic Men and the brilliant A Bend in the River. Consequently, some readers may well find that Half a Life reads more like half a novel. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
In a narrative that moves with dreamlike swiftness from India to England to Africa, Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul has produced his finest novel to date, a bleakly resonant study of the fraudulent bargains that make up an identity.
The son of a Brahmin ascetic and his lower-caste wife, Willie Chandran grows up sensing the hollowness at the core of his father's self-denial and vowing to live more authentically. That search takes him to the immigrant and literary bohemias of 1950s London, to a facile and unsatisfying career as a writer, and at last to a decaying Portugese colony in East Africa, where he finds a happiness he will then be compelled to betray. Brilliantly orchestrated, at once elegiac and devastating in its portraits of colonial grandeur and pretension,
Half a Life represents the pinnacle of Naipaul's career.
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant return to form.......2007-06-24
This is a fascinating book, whether or not you are familiar with Naipaul's work. I've read almost everything he's ever written, fiction and non-fiction, since a graduate class I took back in '01. He's truly one of the great writers of our time, particularly in expressing the experience of those trying to work their way out of the web of colonialism. At one point, Naipaul had publicly stated that he was through with the novel, which I thought was a dreadful shame; I'm delighted to see this return to form (though his non-fiction is amazing), especially in this short, spare volume, which capitalizes on themes he's been working on since The Mystic Masseur.
Having just re-read A House for Mr. Biswas (his greatest work) before this, I was amazed by how much similar territory this work covers--at least initially. But where he takes our protaganist is quite new (though similar to work such as "The Mimic Men"), and kept me riveted from the first page. Naipaul's greatest strength is to created terribly flawed, and often not too admirable people that you completely identify with, and whose struggle to succeed or to find some vain piece of happiness becomes your own struggle. While many people might be initially put off by Willie (the "hero"), Naipaul creates his inner world so believably that we inhabit it without thinking. His spare prose, while seemingly artless, is beautifully constructed and creates entire worlds with the merest of glimpses--particularly Willie's impressions of Africa in the final third of the book.
This is a great book to discover Naipaul with, and it's equally great to end here as well (as I did). If you enjoy this book, you could easily follow the same line of development with A House for Mr. Biswas (which is more comic and reflects his earlier style), The Mimic Men, A Bend in the River, and In a Free State. At the same hand, you might be surprised to encounter the more comic (and Narayanesque) Naipaul in works like The Mystic Masseur, The Suffrage of Elvira, and Miguel Street. Yet ultimately, it's all cut from the same cloth.
So excited he's taken up fiction again. This is more than a worthy effort--it's a must read.
Very good Naipaul.......2007-05-28
Naipaul is my favourite author and I have almost all his books. His descriptions of his experiences in London and Africa are always excellent and this is no exception. I particularly liked the part of the book set in London in 50s and his description of the way of life for all immigrants regardless of where they were from. The book ends in Mozambique and the story of the end of empire is poignant.
Really 4.5 Stars and Any Naipal Book is Worth Reading.......2007-05-21
"Half a Life" is really two half novels. Split into three chapters, I would venture that Naipaul wrote chapter three, and then reviewed the book and completed chapters and one and two to deliver a complete story.
The protagonist, Willie Somerset Chandron, is followed from teen age youth to age 41. This aspect of the novel reminds me of Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" which is now a movie catching many nonreaders' attention. Unlike "the Namesake", this book starts a generation earlier (1950's to 1970's) and the protagonist ventures away from India for Europe - where Namesake deals with a first generation American in the 1970's to present.
Chapter three mainly occurs in pre-guerilla Mozambique where Chandron (a namesake himself whose father met Englishman Somerset Maugham when he ventured through India to write a spiritual novel) lives an imperialist's life of comfort with mixed race plantation owners who Naipaul says, ". . . considered themselves, deep down, people of the second rank. They were not fully Portuguese. . . " Similarly, Chandron is half-and-half: his father a Brahmin and mother among the "backwards."
Interwoven throughout this book are stories about and written by the protagonist. Some anecdotal fairy tales written by school boy Chandron explain the angst within Chandron who holds love/hate feelings about his father and mother. Later, during his university years, Chandron portrays the Indian perception of English life, giving new angle and new refection on British society from his unique vantage. And, in the end, a totally classic vision of an Indian person's perspective of colonial African life, living with half breeds, and their relationships and customs with the natives. A masterful analysis of contrasting cultures.
In many ways, this novel is terribly depressing. Like J.M. Coetzee's protagonist (David Lurie) in "Disgrace", the middle aged male in this book releases his frustrations with inappropriate sexual liaisons with young women - a least attractive characteristic of each novel's main person. Ultimately, like Coetzee's Lurie, Chandron improves as a person and takes back his life - which many years has been floating or languishing in doldrums and nonproductive seclusion.
Naipaul has written better books, but few others can write as well as Naipaul. Even in this less than "A-game", the novelist's superior style carries the reader through the 20+ years of Chandron's unique, and occasionally uneventful, life. This book is better than most you can pull off the book shelves. This author is much better than most on the book shelves.
But a Five-Star Career!.......2006-12-07
If by some mischance this were the first Naipaul novel you ever read, I doubt you'd read another. Not that it's an empty book or a stupid book! It's just not a well-crafted novel. The early novels, like The Suffrage of Elvira and Miguel Street, were exuberantly funny and picturesque. The later novel, like Bend in the River and Guerrillas, were powerful depictions of the sicknesses of our times. In between came A House for Mr. Biswas, surely one of the greatest novels of the century, in a sense the last Victorian novel that could justifiably be written. Following Guerrillas, it seemed that Naipaul's analytic mind thoroughly displace his imagination, and the best of his later books are all "non-fiction", often in the form of extended travel essays. A gentle introduction to the ferocity of Naipaul's world-view would be A Turn in the South, his only book about the USA. Perhaps he should never have returned to the novel, the craft of which I think he no longer enjoys. Be that as it may, Naipaul is one of the greatest English writers of the century, more than deserving of the recognition of the Nobel Prize.
Good Naipaul, But This Isn't Nearly as Splendid as "A House for Mr. Biswas".......2006-10-02
I concurr with another Amazon.com reviewer in his excellent assessment of "A House for Mr. Biswas", which most certainly deserves recognition as one of Naipaul's best - if not his best - novel. In stark comparison, "Half a Life" truly comes across more as half a novel, though it does include a fascinating character, Willie Somerset Chandran, as its main protagonist. Chandran, named for British author Somerset Maugham - who had met Chandran's father while researching a novel on spirituality in India, is the then unusual product of a marital union between a high class Brahmin (his father) and an Untouchable (his mother); so purely from the sense of the then firmly entrenched caste system in India, Chandran's life does indeed seem to be "half a life". He escapes his home to venture forth to late 1950s London, enrolls at a local college, and tries to start a literary career for himself by publishing a collection of short stories while still in school. A chance meeting with a young admirer of his book, an Afro-Portugese woman from Mozambique, leads to his two decade-long sojourn in her country, living a rather dull existence with the young woman and her neighbors, as Mozambique slips into chaos from a fierce anti-colonial rebellion led by native insurgents. Eventually, after the insurgents have seized power peacefully, wrestling control of Mozambique from its centuries-long colonial occupier, Chandran realizes that he must leave, and join his sister, now living in Germany, having lived only "half a life" in distant Mozambique. Much to his credit, Naipaul tells this story in splendid, occasionally captivating prose, but I wish that the plot had more of the emotional richness and complexity found in "A House for Mr. Biswas".
Book Description
Claire's older brother, Daniel, has disappeared. He leaves work one Friday afternoon, shortly before Christmas, and vanishes into thin air. Married, successful, rich, there seems no reason why he would abandon his life. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had enough?
Set between London and Miami, this is the story of a family with ghosts to bury. It opens on the day of the Challenger shuttle explosion at Cape Canaveral: a tragic moment that rips this family apart and sets Daniel's disappearance in motion some 18 years later. In the midst of it all sits Claire—divorced, irresponsible, fluent in six foreign languages yet hopeless at interpreting life. It is Claire who knows Daniel best. It is Claire who becomes convinced that she knows where her older brother is and sets off on a journey to find him.
Customer Reviews:
typos, typoes, typo's.......2007-04-02
I saw this book in Barnes & Noble and it looked like it could be good, so I read it. It's an ok story, not that great but I've read worse. What really annoyed me were the misspellings which abounded, not to mention a few misued apostrophes. For example: Majitos (mojitos), tikkii hut (tiki hut), chilly (chili) and the plural of "it" spelled "it's". Oh, and Salma Hayek is referred to as "Selma Hayek".
If I could have gotten past all the grammatical errors I probably would have given it 4 stars.
Amazon.com
Paul Monette first made a name for himself in 1978 with his debut novel, Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll, a comic romp with serious overtones. He established himself as a writer of popular fiction with three more novels before he and his lover were both diagnosed with HIV. In 1988 he wrote On Borrowed Time, a memoir of living with AIDS and of his lover's death. The passion and anger that fueled On Borrowed Time surfaces again in 1992's Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story, his National Book Award-winning autobiography. Although it follows the traditional structure of the autobiography and bildungsroman--early family life, education, reflections on how art influenced the subject's view of life--Becoming a Man also filters Monette's story through two central facts: the closet and AIDS. Monette writes of the pain of being closeted, the effect it had on his writing, and how it shaped (and often destroyed) his relationships. Monette's fear and fury at AIDS and homophobia heighten the same skill and imagination he put into his fiction. This vision--poetic yet highly political, angry yet infused with the love of life--is what transforms Becoming a Man from simple autobiography into an intense record of struggle and salvation. Paul Monette did not lead a life different from many gay men--he struggled courageously with his family, his sexuality, his AIDS diagnosis--but in bearing witness to his and others' pain, he creates a personal testimony that illuminates the darkest corners of our culture even as it finds unexpected reserves of hope.
Book Description
The critically and popularly acclaimed coming of age/coming out story from the author of Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir. "Witty as it is anguished and as full of understanding as of anger, this is Monette's best book."--Booklist
Customer Reviews:
A most moving account.......2007-09-09
A frank, honest and very moving memoir, it is beautifully written (which makes the odd grammatical error all the more perplexing) with prose which flow almost seamlessly. The writer describes a varied and colourful life searching for Mr Right, and while he eventually finds fulfilment and happiness, the ultimate conclusion is nothing short of tear inducing. A most captivating read.
Angry, thoughtful, disheartening, and triumphant.......2006-12-28
The tone of this book is sometimes so overwhelmingly negative and self-deprecating that, if you don't know at least a little about the author, it would certainly overshadow the meaning and ultimate victory of this journey, chronicled here with such amazing detail as to transport a reader, almost, deep inside Paul Monette's head.
If you're reading the book, or would like to do so, know that Mr. Monette does find love, more than once, and that he finds his journey to have been both extraordinary and extraordinarily painful, I believe. Sadly, he is gone now.
Also keep in mind that Mr. Monette lived long before Will & Grace and Latter Days and anything that would counter his impression that the world was out to uncover his homosexuality and that it wasn't the greatest sin/evil that he could have imagined.
In another place and time, I see many parts of myself and my journey in his, although likely drastically less dramatic and with far fewer prep schools involved. (Like none.) His journey provides insight and detail that can assure countless masses that they are not alone and are not unworthy to find happiness and love despite not filling the traditional recipe for heterosexual roles.
SO READ THIS BOOK, and feel his pain. Relish his rich experiences, his amazing writing ability, feel his loss, and relish his ultimate victory, if not victory over AIDS, then the victory of finding love. Not easy reading, but highly recommended.
Taps into the rage many of us felt growing up gay.......2005-12-12
I give this book 5 stars because of the intimate way in which I related to the story told here. I am not sure if a non-gay person would enjoy this quite as much, although I'm sure they would find it a worthwhile read. An important read, really, for straight and gay alike, because it explains by example how many of us felt violated and suppressed growing up in a society that had little tolerance for homosexuality. True, things have changed now, (though not enough), but this book details the state of growing up gay in 20th century America, and all that it entailed, written lavishly and flowingly.
Not incredibly written, but profoundly important.......2005-11-02
As a twenty year old heterosexual male I found this book to very insightful. Monette illuminates both the sturglles and the shame of the homosexual community. I understood that it was hard to be gay, but this book has really helped to show me that this strife comes not from any inherent feeling attached to homosexuality but is a result instead of the prejudice and hate of the public, many of whom are supposed closet cases. I think that eventually America's continuing and blatant homophobia will be seen in the same light that we now view the cross burning and racial pogroms that dominated our contry for centuries. I wish you all strength and courage in your battle against these evil forces. Thank you.
Important text in gay literature.......2005-06-30
Becoming a Man is the National Book Award winning memoir by Paul Monette, and was a landmark text in the literature associated with HIV. This book was, in many ways, the "little book that could," beating out such non-fiction heavyweights as David McCullough for the NBA.
Monette is a fascinating character - shortly after reading this memoir, I saw the documentary about Monette's life. I have always enjoyed his novels...Taking Care of Mrs Carroll, The Longshot, and Halfway Home. This memoir is not only brilliantly written, it is well-suffused with the authors thoughts about being gay, suffering with HIV, and the experience of being "other."
When Monette passed away, literature lost a bright light.
Average customer rating:
- A gorgeous and vivid debut Novel!
- Bad Ending
- Disappointing characterization
- A Page-Turner
- The Oregon Trail in the 1800's to Portland in the 1980's
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The Half-Life: A Novel
Jonathan Raymond
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1582345783
Release Date: 2005-04-14 |
Book Description
When Cookie Figowitz, the cook for a party of volatile fur trappers trekking through the Oregon Territory in the 1820s, joins up with the refugee Henry Brown, the two begin a wild ride that takes them from the virgin territory of the West all the way to China and back again. One hundred and sixty years later, Tina Plank, an unhappy teenager, meets Trixie, a girl with a troubled past, and the two become fast friends. But when two skeletons are accidentally unearthed from their common ground, the lives of Tina and Trixie, Cookie and Henry are brought together in unexpected and startling ways.
Customer Reviews:
A gorgeous and vivid debut Novel!.......2007-03-08
This novel is so rich and so full of beauty I don't even know where to begin. I'll start my saying that Raymond has mastered the English language. I found myself reading and re-reading the same line over and over again sometimes not being able to continue the book until the poetry of a certain line would sink in. Raymond uses even the simplest phrases in the most elegant ways and I found myself recalling his exact words days and even weeks after reading them.
OK, three words... location, location, location! Raymond uses such incredibly beautiful descriptions. The setting comes alive in this novel like no other book I've ever read. As a reader you feel it, you hear it, you smell it and you taste it as if you're there. I am in awe that this is a debut novel. After reading the first few chapters I had to look Raymond up to see if he wasn't some famous naturalist. I felt as if I was reading the journal of an early scientist exploring the Northwest Territory. It seems that Mr. Raymond knows every bird, plant, weed and stone in Oregon by name and yet he describes them to the reader in almost childlike simplicity. My theory has always been that if someone really knows something well, then they can describe it and make it understood even to a child. To me, Raymond knows Oregon like the back of his hand and I used to live there. They should make this novel mandatory reading for all Pacific Northwesterners so they can appreciate the beauty and the mystery of the region.
Then there's the cooking... Did you ever see the movie "Like Water for Chocolate"? I felt like I was reading a written sequel. I must have gained five pounds just reading it. The cooking scenes are fantastic and made my mouth water and my eyes burn.
Besides all that, the novel is haunting. I have no idea what the reviewers below are talking about by "lack of character development". Did we read the same book? Did you get through the first two pages or did your short little attention span get the better of you again? This novel is packed full of the most incredible characters. Simple, yet profound Neil, volatile Trixie Voltera, Tina the lost girl, the young romantic dreamer Henry, the serious and mysterious King Lu and Cookie! What about Cookie? Seriously, were you reading the same book as me? Cookie is the first time since reading "Giovann's Room" that I absolutely fell in love with a character! This is possibly the gentlest and most Zen character ever written!
OK, then the ending. First let me say that I love David Mitchell, but I get down on him for always wrapping his books into neat little packages in the end. Sorry David, but that's not doing it for me. Life is complex and so is "The Half Life". It always seems to me like Mitchell is trying to be Murakami in a way but with happy endings. Raymond perfectly captures the complexities of life and the struggle we all share for closeness and contact but to me it appears as if he wasn't even trying which is a sure sign that he was. The book and the ending definitely have a Eastern feel which brings Murakami to mind but the comparisons stop there. "The Half Life" is to me a completely unique book which stands by itself. Raymond fuses what must be an incredibly diverse background in history, natural sciences, English, film making and a little partying in the Northwest with a deceptively simple style and the heart of a poet and naturalist.
If you like:
Murakami
David Mitchell
Thoreau
James Baldwin
Jack London
Jared Diamond
Nature
Film Making
or if you live in the Pacific Northwest or if you like incredibly rich love stories that aren't what they appear,
THEN BUY THIS BOOK!
Bad Ending.......2006-10-14
This book did a good job at exciting me. The more i read the more i because interested in how all these characters would intertwine. But i tell you, they didnt until the 3 very last chapters, and it was very dissapointing. The writer is good with all his descriptive words and really gets you into the characters, but for no apparent reason because they are totally discarded at the end.
Disappointing characterization.......2004-09-18
I loved the idea of this book much more than the book itself. Raymond obviously has great skill as a writer--the beautiful descriptions, the deep knowledge of history--but I felt like his characters were the weak point. Cookie, Tina, and Neil, the three main characters, feel like outlines, not real, flesh-and-blood people. They seem to have no past and no ideas about the future. They drift and they dream, but who are they, really?
Raymond seems to have a great book in him; let's hope the next book is it.
A Page-Turner.......2004-07-30
As an Oregonian who loves regional fiction, I was a little worried. Usually, when a novel is descibed in terms like, "It's the story of friendship..." it is one of those over-wrought, over-written books that don't ever tell a story.
Happily, my worries were wrong. This book is a page-turner.
I cared about the characters, where they went, and what happened to them. I couldn't put it down until I came to the end.
Yes, it's a novel about friendship. But it's a real yarn of two times, drawn together by place. It's funny and fun, and it's sad, and it's thought-provoking.
If you want to curl up with a good book that you'll enjoy -- and learn a little about Oregon, and a lot about interesting characters -- get this book. You'll love it.
The Oregon Trail in the 1800's to Portland in the 1980's.......2004-07-17
Friendships, entrepreneurialism and the generational influences are at the heart of this beguiling, but predictable and slightly over-wrought book by Jonathan Raymond. With its duel narrative, that readily switches backwards and forwards in time, The Half-Life, is at once a successful historical epic set in the 1800's, and an effective portrait of the mid-eighties Regan era. Two friendships are separated by generations but bound together by a dark mystery: A pair of skeletons are discovered at the edge of Portland's Forest Park which sparks a clash between forensic science and Native American rights. The identity of the skeletons is the mystery at the heart of the story, but the eventual unveiling of them will come as no great surprise to the reader.
Stretching from the late 1820s to the early 1860s, the earlier of his two narratives follows Cookie Figowitz whom the reader first encounters as a camp cook for a party of fur trappers whose supplies of food are running out. As he forages for food one evening with the hopes of placating the increasingly restless men, Cookie stumbles over Henry Brown, a man on the run from violent Russians looking to settle an old score. The two friends have a desire to become rich so they devise a trading scheme that takes them to China, where under very different circumstances Cookie strikes up a new friendship with a calligrapher, King Lu.
The more recent story line, from the 1980s, involves two teenage girls: Tina Plank, a recent transplant from California, and Trixie Volterra, who earlier came from California shrouded in a shady, drug fueled past. They're the only young people living among aging hippies in a commune on the fringes of Portland, and the bond they forge leads to their own scheme - a film project, which they throw themselves into with indisputable enthusiasm. When, in the midst of filming, the two skeletons are unearthed on the property, the nexus of the two narratives converge and the lives of Cookie and Henry, Tina and Trixie converge in unexpected ways.
The Half-Life has the right ingredients of a mystery - two unidentified skeletons from the past, a man trapped in a prison in a foreign country, and a battle between forensic science and the spirituality of native heritage. But rather than constructing the plot around the conventional thriller Raymond is more concerned with questions of history, and he insists that we become aware of the complex and shifting base of our identities and our behaviors. The world of this novel seems polarized between two radically different time periods, however, the characters, in both times periods, are assertive, entrepreneurial and excitingly individualistic. The novel also effectively juxtaposes the modern with the historical Pacific Northwest, and there are some beautifully disquieting passages highlighting Raymond's skill as a prose writer.
However, this reader felt that The Half-Life sprawled in too many directions and had far too many forced narrative developments. Raymond is trying to say too much, and towards the end, as the mystery becomes clearer, the narrative tends to loose focus. The Half-Life, however, does have some moments of surprising power and grace, revealing the pleasures and heartaches that can unavoidably bind us to one another. The ambiguities of friendship, the fact that a person's life is completed only by friendship, and that friendships can be formed under the most unlikely of scenarios, is at the thematic heart of this novel. Mike Leonard July 04.
Average customer rating:
- Great first Novel
- Interesting, but not captivating
- In Search of Holly Golightly...
- This book is simply marvelous.
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Half Crazy: A Novel (Half Crazy)
J. M. McDonell
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0316555606 |
Customer Reviews:
Great first Novel.......2000-12-18
This is one of those books that I read at one of those moments in life where I just starting to understand myself. And this booked helped. I hold it very close to my heart, and I hope that you will too. Even though I agree with some of the other reviews (about underdeveloped characters) I find that a minor flaw in such an awesome first novel for Ms. J. M.
Interesting, but not captivating.......2000-12-04
J.M. McDonell does a wonderful job in exploring what it means to be a friend and to love someone. David is constantly struggling with the choices that Miranda makes in her relationships with others. I wouldn't say that he is jealous of Miranda's lovers in a sexual sense, but he is so awestruck by her charisma and beauty that he doesn't want to see her get hurt. He has to come to terms with his feelings for her - Is she the one who is going to change everything about his way of life? Does he love her? It seems as though J.M. McDonell did a marvelous job in developing David, Miranda, and few other characters, but there were other characters that didn't seem to be important to the plot (like the veterarian, and Ben). I think that she could have made each of the characters more developed and meaningful to the story. She could have made a stronger connection between some of the characters. I felt as though there were many wasted pages in her novel on which she would introduce these meaningless characters, never intending to incorporate them into the plot. Despite the underdeveloped characters, I enjoyed reading Half Crazy. I think that McDonell could have made the book more captivating by not taking up space with names and descriptions that weren't integral to the plot.
In Search of Holly Golightly..........1999-06-10
Though interesting and enjoyable (read on a plane-trip), at times I felt as though the ghosts of Holly Golightly and Dunne's Grenville women were lurking in the mist. Miranda did exhibit a vunerable fragility that made her character believable; David was a 2 dimensional Truman Capote wanna-be? Or so it seemed to me. All in all, an entertaining romp, though more like late-night snack at Van Cleef's rather than Breakfast at Tiffany's!
This book is simply marvelous........1998-06-10
I don't know why I pulled "Half Crazy" from the shelf that day several years ago, but once I'd read the first few sentences, I knew I had to check it out and devour it en toto. I've read it five or six times, all told, and I never get tired of reading about Miranda, delving into her story.
Average customer rating:
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Half Moon Pocosin
Cherry L. F. Johnson
Manufacturer: Academy Chicago Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General | Native American | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Domestic Life | Women's Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Cultural | Anthropology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0897334388 |
Average customer rating:
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Half Portions
Edna Ferber
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General | Classics | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | History & Criticism | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary Theory | History & Criticism | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
20th Century | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Criticism & Theory | History & Criticism | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
British | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0252028430 |
Book Description
The short stories in this collection take the reader from small-town Wisconsin to the bustling streets of New York and Chicago and back again. While they range greatly in length and tone, they all share the trademark wit and affectionate insight of Edna Ferber.
Showcasing the facility with words that made her a mainstay at the Algonquin round table, Ferber explores some of her favorite themes: the role of women (especially strong or unconventional women) in modern society, the mores of the midwestern small town, and the changes over time in relationships between parents and children. In "The Maternal Feminine," a plain, overlooked child grows into a strong, resourceful businesswoman and forms a strong motherly bond with the children of her more attractive sister. In "April 25th, As Usual," an aging Wisconsin couple reluctantly join their successful daughter in New York, where they try to adjust to a very different lifestyle. "Old Lady Mandle"is a bittersweet tale about an elderly Chicago mother coming to terms with the fact that she is no longer the most important woman in the life of her grown son. "One Hundred Per Cent" features Ferber's celebrated heroine Emma McChesney, now re-married, seeing her husband off to war.
The stories gathered here are beautifully observed chronicles of early twentieth-century life and are filled with characters who, despite their very human foibles, are all bestowed by Ferber with warmth and dignity.
Books:
- Harry Potter Schoolbooks Box Set: From the Library of Hogwarts: Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, Quidditch Through The Ages
- Hattie Big Sky
- His Princess: Love Letters from Your King (His Princess)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Books Index
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Special Topics in Calamity Physics
