The History of Love

One of the joys of being a reader, is to read books about the power of the written word. That's why I enjoyed the Calvino so much. Anybook about books and reading is likely to get a go from me.

So, I picked up The History of Love by Nicole Krauss at a little discount bookstore in Yarragon, that is always worth what my mother would call a "fossick". The title relates to the name of a book that has had an effect on all of the characters.

Leopold Gursky wrote the book to celebrate his love for his childhood sweetheart, who he was separated from during the Second World War. But the book is never published under his name - in fact, it is not until the end of Gursky's life that he realises it was ever published at all.

On the other side of the shifting narrative is Alma, a fourteen-year-old girl who is trying to understand the power that this book has over her widowed mother. A gift from her deceased father, her mother loved it so much that she names Alma after the woman who is the love interest of the story. In searching for answers about the author and her namesake, Alma hopes to find a way to rescue her mother from the sadness she has plunged herself into.

Much of the book concerns the mystery of the real authorship of the book, mixed in with a number of strange little love stories and odd little characters. I love some of the writing - our introduction to Leo Gursky, an octagenarian who feels so invisible that he purposefully drops the entire contents of his change purse in the cashier aisle of the supermarket is rather amusing. Although more touching is his feelings when he volunteers to be a nude model for an Art class, simply to have someone look at him all day. This is some of the best work on the whole book.

It's a nice read, although I did not find it compelling. Gentle and surprising in places, but not as profound as the blurb would make out.

Still, definitely a Sunday afternoon read if you are looking for one.

I am starting a new addition to my list next - a Jostein Gaarder book called The Ringmaster's Daughter, that has been recommended to me by a few people in the last week. Let you know how I go.

If On A Winter's Night, A Traveller

Wow! This is the most exciting book I have read in a long time.

To mimic Ludmilla - "it is a book that is full of beginnings, and less concerned with endings. It is a book that explores the changing nature of truth, and it's relationship to the written word. It is a reader's novel, that explores the nature of reading and the interconnectedness of readers and books". I love how she can put a whole lot of bizarre statements together to describe exactly te type of book she is looking for - so if this sounds good to you, give Calvino a go.

If On A Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino is an unexpected and inexplicable read - although clearly I will do my best for those in the blogosphere. It begins with a treatise on being a reader, and then begins the novel suggested by the title. And then the narrative stops, and a second person narrative begins. This second person narrative continues in every second chapter in the book, whilst every other chapter is a new beginning, a new story in the journey of the reader (addressed as you in those other alternating chapters - yikes!) to actually read If On A Winter's Night a Traveller - or any other book he has come across on the journey. Not only is the ongoing story of the reader's search for the endings to the beginnings that he reads fascinating, but each beginning is rich and intriguing, leading more credence to the central recurring plot. YOU are the reader, journeying from story to story, and even less likely than him to finish what you begin! Someone out there must be working on finishing even one of the beginnings. And yet at the same time, they all seem self-contained, as if the central dilemma of a whole plot is reflected through a beginning. Each chapter is a microcosm... it's hard to explain, but if you are interested, wikipedia does a solid job:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_On_a_Winter's_Night_a_Traveler

This was a recommendation by a good friend with exquisite taste in books, so not only will I be coming back for more Calvino, but also for more recommendations from her!

Keep them coming anyone out there! I love that wonderous feeling you get when you love a book and know that you have someone to be thankful to for introducing you to it.

Anyone else out there read Calvino and have a ideas for me? Discuss and debate?

The List V2.0

Hi All,

For some reason, I cannot update the previous list any other way than to create a new posting. It's all very mysterious. Here's the updated version of THE LIST...


1
Harry Potter Book 7
J.K. Rowling

2
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy

3
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck

4
1984
George Orwell

5
A Prayer for Owen Meany
John Irving

6
The Woman in White
Wilkie Collins

7
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand

8
A Room With A View
EM Forster

9
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman

10
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway

11
A Child Called It
Dave Pelzer

12
The Penelopiad
Margaret Atwood

13
Double Vision
Pat Barker

14
Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen

15
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James

16
The Mermaid Chair
Sue Monk Kidd

17
Ethan Frome
Edith Wharton

18
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens

19
A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens

20
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro

21
Zorro
Isabel Allende

22
Amsterdam
Ian McEwan

23
Memories of my Melancholy Whores
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

24
The Fourth Bear
Jasper Fforde

25
The Surgeon of Crowthorne
Simon Winchester

26
Neuromancer
William Gibson

27
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess

28
Slaughterhouse Five
Kurt Vonnegut

29
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov

30
Shalimar the Clown
Salman Rushdie

31
Enduring Love
Ian McEwan

32
On The Road
Jack Kerouac

33
Possession
A. S. Byatt

34
Briefing for a Descent into Hell
Doris Lessing

35
Time’s Arrow
Martin Amis

36
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Phillip K Dick

37
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Tracey Chevalier

38
The Same Sea
Amos Oz

39
In Cold Blood
Truman Capote

40
If On Winter’s Night, A Traveller
Italo Calvino

41
The Infinite Plan
Isabelle Allende

42
Boy in the Striped Pajamas
John Boyne

43
Sleep, Pale Sister
Joanne Harris

44
Time’s Arrow
Martin Amis

45
The Complete Polysyllabic Spree
Nick Hornby

46
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Lionel Shriver

47
Nineteen Minutes
Jodie Picoult

A Long-awaited Reconciliation

No, that title clearly does not have anything to do with John Howard.

It refers instead to my reconcilaition with my blog - oh poor forgotten blog who I had been spending so little time with recently. I figured out it had been nearly two months since my last post. Thank God it has not been so long since my last book (Hi, my name's Welloflostplots, and I'm a bookaholic)!

Okay, the boring stuff first. Reading lots for work. Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy was not too bad - your typical school text, but one fo the better ones. I would not recommend it for serious readers following this blog (where are you all), but in terms of school text selection, yeah not bad. Finding it impossible and distasteful getting into Malouf's Fly Away Peter (oh yes, the bird reference there is real) and on a completely separate topic, tried Paulina Simmons' Girl in Times Square, which is admittedly light reading but recommended by a friend for relaxation purposes. Unfortunately it is so long and depressing, I didn't bother to finish it. Sorry friend! I do like a recommendation.

I did get into Enduring Love by Ian McEwan. The bonus of this was that it was a list book, and also one that I had to read for work. The subject matter was not my favourite, but his writing is simply beautiful. It's about a man who is stalked with religious zeal by another man, who feels their meeting at the scene of a ballooning accident was "destiny". It gets a bit scary in a reasonably typical fashion, but the writing impressed me so much that I added more McEwan to the list (updated, check it out).

Anyway, reading something truly unusual and fabulous right now, both a recommendation and off the list, so there you go. But got to keep you in suspense if I am planning on writing more often...