I first read The Reluctant Fundamentalist three years ago for a seminar on literature and terrorism for my MA in English. It’s a beautifully rendered novel with a frame narrative, not unlike Marlow’s rendering of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. And really, there are more than a few analogies one could make with Conrad’s novella. Changez, the narrator of the novel, is living in Pakistan where he encounters an American stranger who appears to be more than just someone on a pleasure tour of Pakistan–post […]
An Eye into the War
Last CBR, I read Pat Barker’s excellent Regeneration and loved it. I wanted to see how her second book in the trilogy, The Eye in the Door, stacked up. As it turns out, even better than the first one. After Dr. Rivers has spent time working with poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Eye in the Door focuses largely on the recovery efforts of Billy Prior, particularly in his investigation of a murder by poison plot of a former neighbor. Here, we learn about the conscientious objectors […]
Austen for Sad Cat Ladies
Are you a sad cat lady? Do you fantasize about wearing pantaloons every time you thumb through your dog-eared copy of Pride and Prejudice? Have you worn out your copy of the Colin Firth DVD and hide it in the plants because you think it’s porn? If your answer to all of these questions is YES, then by all means, Austenland is for you!!!! Okay, I can’t continue this farce. That book pissed me off ten ways to Sunday. Shall we count the ways it […]
Delightful and Difficult Thoughts on Faith
My husband and I just started a book club with a few people in our area, and the inaugural book was Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies. I’d read some of her stuff on writing (and Bird by Bird is particularly excellent, especially if you tend to beat yourself up about your writing or get discouraged easily), but not her stuff on faith. So I was delighted and pleased that Traveling Mercies was just as rejuvenating as Bird by Bird. There’s no “plot” to this kind of […]
Cold Climate, Hot Blue Bloods
Once again, we meet narrator Fanny to witness a very different kind of dysfunctional love in her family in this quasi-sequel to The Pursuit of Love. This time, it involves Fanny’s distant cousin Polly, and the secret and forbidden love she’s been languishing under for years. While Fanny’s crazy cousin Linda has been making a fool of herself so that she can find a boy and get laid, Polly is turning her nose up left and right at eligible and handsome tail, much to the […]
Pursuit of Love–Happiness Optional
If you’re a fan of a satiric voice and mocking manners, then you should definitely check out Nancy Mitford. My friend S is studying her for her doctoral exam, and raved about her. I like a sassy lady who writes about people and society, and Mitford is right up my alley. Pursuit of Love is narrated by Fanny, a young woman essentially abandoned by her parents and raised by her maiden aunt Emily. Her cousins, the Radletts, live nearby, and it is their story that […]