we are seemingly unscathed,
but sooner or later there will be hell to pay.
i was asked on christmas eve morning what the best books i read in 2005 were. i will relate to you what i told this guy, over the course of a couple of posts. i talk a lot.
undisputed number one:
the time traveler's wife - audrey niffenegger
amazing, amazing book. literate, passionate, deeply cerebral, heartbreaking, sexy as fuck. i fell in love with henry in a way i haven't fallen for a character since, dare i say it, gilbert blythe. i can't stop re-reading this book. it's like an addiction. i just wish i could read it again for the first time, with an pre-existing, innate understanding of the time-travel logistics. it's not that niffenegger's theories regarding time-continuum paradoxes are difficult to get one's head around (especially if you've seen back to the future), just that it can be distracting at first. my mother could hardly work it out at all and it just ruined the book for her, which is a damn shame.
the basic premise is a love story. clare and henry are one of those smart, beautiful, indie-ish couples, living in chicago around the present day. they're perfect for each other, that's a given from page one. she's an artist, he's a librarian (and self-described "egon schiele lookalike" - can you blame me?); they have intellectual, abrasive, hilarious friends, go to see the Violent Femmes and are as likely to Fuck as they are to Make Love. they're a fascinating, fun couple with a normally complex relationship and this could be a great book without the time traveling.
but there is time traveling nonetheless. henry has a genetic disorder that means his internal clock periodically resets and he finds himself thrown about the twentieth and early 21st centuries, often to the sites of events that have particular emotional resonance. this is how, when henry (28) meets clare (20) for the first time in 1991, she is already in love with him. several months into their relationship, henry finds himself in a field behind clare's childhood home, and meets clare herself as a child. as the real-time clare and henry have a reasonably normal relationship, meet the parents, get married etc., he finds himself often back in this field, sometimes in his early forties, sometimes his late twenties, where he gets to know the wife he loves so much between the ages of six and eighteen, and she gradually falls in love with her strange and tender new best friend. it's ageless, tragic, original, intelligent and endlessly absorbing. if i still feel this way about this book in two years i will honestly be able to say it's my favourite.
EDIT: oh no. i just found out they're making a movie out of it. let me check the cast... they're talking about having christian bale as henry. i guess i could stand that. laura prepon (donna from that 70s show) as clare? well that depends. has she read madame bovary in the original french? i mean, not like I have or anything, but clare would.
currently reading:
a heartbreaking work of staggering genius - dave eggers (nicked from dana - if i'm going to reference it in my blog i really ought to read the sodding thing). so much better than i ever expected. sadder. i expected a big, metropolitan, light-hearted postmodern romp reflecting on the nature of composition. something a bit like john colapinto's about the author, but spectacularly superior. instead it's devastating but hilarious, and eggers has given his narrator/himself the most amazingly naturalistic voice i've read in a long time, if not ever. i love the big, meandering, tangent-following streams of consciousness. virginia woolf eat your heart out (don't get me STARTED on that woman).
current books on intended reading list:
fear and loathing in las vegas - the indomitable hunter s. (desperate to see the movie, but i promised myself i would never again watch a movie before i read the book after the bridget jones incident. zellweger, get OUT of my head.)
from hipsters to gonzo - how new journalism rewrote the world - marc weingarten (chrissie present, still on the bedside table)
east of eden - john steinbeck (loaned to me by elle, part of my literary self-improvement regime)
the alchemist - paulo coelho (loaned by henry's mum, and ditto)
current tunes: radiohead - i want none of this
i was asked on christmas eve morning what the best books i read in 2005 were. i will relate to you what i told this guy, over the course of a couple of posts. i talk a lot.
undisputed number one:
the time traveler's wife - audrey niffenegger
amazing, amazing book. literate, passionate, deeply cerebral, heartbreaking, sexy as fuck. i fell in love with henry in a way i haven't fallen for a character since, dare i say it, gilbert blythe. i can't stop re-reading this book. it's like an addiction. i just wish i could read it again for the first time, with an pre-existing, innate understanding of the time-travel logistics. it's not that niffenegger's theories regarding time-continuum paradoxes are difficult to get one's head around (especially if you've seen back to the future), just that it can be distracting at first. my mother could hardly work it out at all and it just ruined the book for her, which is a damn shame.
the basic premise is a love story. clare and henry are one of those smart, beautiful, indie-ish couples, living in chicago around the present day. they're perfect for each other, that's a given from page one. she's an artist, he's a librarian (and self-described "egon schiele lookalike" - can you blame me?); they have intellectual, abrasive, hilarious friends, go to see the Violent Femmes and are as likely to Fuck as they are to Make Love. they're a fascinating, fun couple with a normally complex relationship and this could be a great book without the time traveling.
but there is time traveling nonetheless. henry has a genetic disorder that means his internal clock periodically resets and he finds himself thrown about the twentieth and early 21st centuries, often to the sites of events that have particular emotional resonance. this is how, when henry (28) meets clare (20) for the first time in 1991, she is already in love with him. several months into their relationship, henry finds himself in a field behind clare's childhood home, and meets clare herself as a child. as the real-time clare and henry have a reasonably normal relationship, meet the parents, get married etc., he finds himself often back in this field, sometimes in his early forties, sometimes his late twenties, where he gets to know the wife he loves so much between the ages of six and eighteen, and she gradually falls in love with her strange and tender new best friend. it's ageless, tragic, original, intelligent and endlessly absorbing. if i still feel this way about this book in two years i will honestly be able to say it's my favourite.
EDIT: oh no. i just found out they're making a movie out of it. let me check the cast... they're talking about having christian bale as henry. i guess i could stand that. laura prepon (donna from that 70s show) as clare? well that depends. has she read madame bovary in the original french? i mean, not like I have or anything, but clare would.
currently reading:
a heartbreaking work of staggering genius - dave eggers (nicked from dana - if i'm going to reference it in my blog i really ought to read the sodding thing). so much better than i ever expected. sadder. i expected a big, metropolitan, light-hearted postmodern romp reflecting on the nature of composition. something a bit like john colapinto's about the author, but spectacularly superior. instead it's devastating but hilarious, and eggers has given his narrator/himself the most amazingly naturalistic voice i've read in a long time, if not ever. i love the big, meandering, tangent-following streams of consciousness. virginia woolf eat your heart out (don't get me STARTED on that woman).
current books on intended reading list:
fear and loathing in las vegas - the indomitable hunter s. (desperate to see the movie, but i promised myself i would never again watch a movie before i read the book after the bridget jones incident. zellweger, get OUT of my head.)
from hipsters to gonzo - how new journalism rewrote the world - marc weingarten (chrissie present, still on the bedside table)
east of eden - john steinbeck (loaned to me by elle, part of my literary self-improvement regime)
the alchemist - paulo coelho (loaned by henry's mum, and ditto)
current tunes: radiohead - i want none of this
decreed by cait (still queen) | 4:34 pm
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